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Czech vocative

Czech changes the form of a name when you address someone — Petr is addressed as “Petře”, Jana as “Jano”, Mr Novák as “pane Nováku”. This form is called the vocative, the 5th grammatical case. A message saying “Dobrý den, Petr” therefore sounds automated, while “Dobrý den, Petře” sounds as if a person wrote it.

BulkGate can create the vocative from a name by itself. All you need is the recipient's first or last name on record and a vocative variable in the message text.

Vocative variables

variable	what it inserts into the message	example
`<first_name_vokativ>`	the first name in the vocative	Petr → Petře
`<last_name_vokativ>`	the last name in the vocative	Novák → Nováku

In the message editor you will find them as First name vocative and Last name vocative. For each variable the editor also shows the percentage of recipients who have a value filled in.

Where to use the vocative

In a campaign and when sending a single message

The text editor offers the variables in a campaign as well as in the Send message form. The vocative is created automatically from the recipient's first and last name — for contacts from the address book as well as for recipients you upload into the campaign from a file or enter by hand. How to work with variables in general is described in Message variables.

In the API

When sending through the Advanced API, pass the first_name or last_name key in the variables object of the number. We work out the vocative for them ourselves, and you use it in the text with <first_name_vokativ> or <last_name_vokativ>:

{ "number": [{"number": "420777777777", "variables": {"first_name": "Lukáš"}}], "text": "Ahoj <first_name_vokativ>, tvoje objednávka je na cestě." }

The recipient gets the message “Ahoj Lukáši, tvoje objednávka je na cestě.”

In the e-shop plugin

The customer and admin SMS templates have variables of their own, which the plugin fills from the customer's name in the order:

variable	what it inserts into the message
`<customer_firstname_vokativ>`	the customer's first name in the vocative
`<customer_lastname_vokativ>`	the customer's last name in the vocative
`<customer_invoice_firstname_vokativ>`	the first name from the billing address in the vocative
`<customer_invoice_lastname_vokativ>`	the last name from the billing address in the vocative

How the vocative is created

Automatically from the name. The form is derived from the ending of the name. The ending also tells whether it is a male or a female name — the gender field of the contact is not used.
Female last names do not change. Mrs Nováková stays “Nováková”; first names ending in -a get -o (Jana → Jano).
It is recalculated with every change of the name. When you correct a contact's name, the vocative is created again. The vocative itself cannot be edited by hand — there is no field for it in the contact or in the import.

Important

The vocative is created by the rules of Czech for every name, regardless of the contact's country. A Slovak or foreign recipient could thus receive “Dobrý den, Johne”. So use the vocative variables only in messages for Czech recipients.

For unusual or foreign names the form may come out wrong — so before a large send-out, check the message preview for a few contacts.

When the name is missing

A recipient without a name cannot have a vocative. So add a default text to the variable after a colon — it is used for everyone whose name is missing:

Dobrý den <first_name_vokativ:zákazníku>, máme pro vás novinku.

A recipient named Petr gets “Dobrý den Petře, …”, a recipient without a name “Dobrý den zákazníku, …”.

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