Prepositions and Cases

Prepositions are inflexible parts of speech. They acquire their whole meaning only in connection with nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and numerals.

Every Czech preposition determines the grammatical case, and, therefore, the ending of the following noun.
It is good to memorize which case uses which preposition, although one preposition can sometimes be used with several different grammatical cases, each having a different meaning.

2. genitive:
bez - without (I'm not going there without Martin.)
blízko - near (The house stands near the tree.)
do - to, into, until (We go to school.)
od - from (The letter is from a friend.)
okolo, kolem - around, about (We ride around the playground.)
u - at, by (location) (He lives by the school.)
vedle - next to (The house is next to the school.)
z/ze - from (He walked out from the store.)
kromě - except (Everyone is in the garden except Grandpa.)
místo - instead of (I'll write instead of Martin.)
podle - according to (It has to be according to the rules.)
podél, kolem - along, around (He walked around the house.)
během - during (We will go there during the holidays.)
pomocí - with help (He wrote the assignment with the help of Peter.)

3. dative:
k, ke - to, towards (Come to me.)
naproti - opposite (The house is opposite the school.)
proti - against (He was against the proposal.)
kvůli - because of, due to (We won't go there because of the dog.)
díky - thanks to (Thanks to dad, we have a dog.)
vůči - towards, to, against (It is not fair towards Peter.)

4. accusative:
pro - for (The gift is for a friend.)
za - for, on behalf of, in the course of (I will go there on behalf of Maria.)
před - in front of (He stood in front of the table.)
mimo - out of something (The parking lot is out of service.)
na - on, onto (direction) (Put it on the table.)
pod, pode - under (He threw it under the table.)
nad, nade - above (There is a painting above the door.)
mezi - between (Put it between the windows.)
skrz, skrze - through (I can see you through the window.)
přes - in spite of, across, over (She is jumping over the jumping rope.)
po - up to (The water is up to my knees.)
v - in (I don't believe in fairies.)

6. locative:
o - about (The fairy tale is about a princess.)
na - on (location) (The glass is on the table.)
v, ve - in (There is lemonade in the glass.)
po - after (We will go home after lunch.)
při - during (He wasn't paying attention during the class.)

7. instrumental:
s, se - with (I'm with you.)
za - behind (I'm standing behind the table.)
před - in front of, before (We will meet in front of the school.)
pod - below, under (A cat is sleeping under the table.)
nad - above, over (A plane flies over the city.)
mezi - between (You have to read between the lines.)

Difference between "s, z, v, k" and "se, ze, ve, ke"
The general rule is to use whichever is easier to pronounce in connection with the word that follows the preposition.
The -e in prepositions ("se", "ze", "ve") is to make the pronunciation easier when the preposition is placed in front of a word that begins with a consonant.