Czech conjugation

The infinitive is formed by the ending -t, formerly also -ti; on some words -ct (-ci):

být – to be, jít – to go, péct – to bake

Somewhat archaically:

býti – to be, jíti – to go, péci – to bake

Participles are used for forming the past tense, conditionals and the passive voice in Czech. They are related to the short forms of adjectives. Therefore unlike other verb forms, they also express gender which must correspond with the gender of the subject.

The transgressive (přechodník) expresses an action which happens coincidentally with or foregoing some other action.

The transgressive (přechodník) is an archaic form of the verb in Czech and Slovak. Nowadays, it is used only occasionally for artistic purposes or in unchanging expressions. Transgressives were still used quite widely in Czech literature in the beginning of the 20th century (not in the spoken language). For example, Jaroslav Hašek's The Good Soldier Švejk contains a lot of them.

Czech recognizes present and past transgressives. The present transgressive can express present or future action according to the aspect of the verb it is derived from. The past transgressive is usually derived from perfective verbs.

Examples:

• Usednuvši u okna, začala plakat. (Having sat down at a window, she began to cry.) – past transgressive (foregoing action)
• Děti, vidouce babičku, vyběhly ven. (The children, seeing grandma, ran out.) – present transgressive (coincident action/process)

Czech verbs are distinguished by aspect, they are either perfective or imperfective. Perfective verbs indicate the finality of the process. Therefore, they cannot express the present tense.

Perfective verbs are usually formed adding prefixes to imperfective verbs:

psát (imperf.) – to write, to be writing → napsat (perf.) – to write down

Some perfective verbs are not formally related to imperfective ones:

brát (imperf.) – to take, to be taking → vzít (perf.) – to take

Czech verbs express three absolute tenses – past, present and future. Relativity can be expressed by the aspect, sentence constructions and participles.

The present tense can be expressed in imperfective verbs only.

The imperative mood is formed for the 2nd person singular and plural and the 1st person plural.

In the 2nd person singular, it takes either null ending or -i/-ej ending, according to the verb class.

The 2nd person plural takes the ending -te/-ete/-ejte and the 1st person plural takes -me/-eme/-ejme.

Examples:

buď! buďte! (be!) buďme! (let's be!)

spi! spěte! (sleep!) spěme! (let's sleep!)

dělej! dělejte! (do!) dělejme! (let's do!)

The conditionals are formed by the past participle and special forms of the verb být (to be). Following example of the present conditional is for the male gender (animate in plural):

dělal bych – I would do

There is also the past conditional in Czech but it is usually replaced by the present conditional.

byl bych dělal – I would have done

By also becomes a part of conjugations aby (so that) and kdyby (if). Therefore, these conjunctions take the same endings:

Kdybych nepracoval, nedostal bych výplatu. If I didn't work, I would get no wages.

There are two ways to form the passive voice in Czech:

1. By the verb být (to be) and the passive participle:

Město bylo založeno ve 14. století. The town was founded in the 14th century.

2. By adding the reflexive pronoun se:

Ono se to neudělalo. It has not been done.

To se vyrábí v Číně. It is produced in China.

However, the use of se is not exclusive to the passive voice.

Reflexive pronouns se and si are components of reflexive verbs (se/si is not usually translated into English):

posadit se – to sit down

myslet si – to think, to suppose

Negation is formed by the prefix ne-. In the future tense and the passive voice it is added to the auxiliary verb být (to be).

nedělat – not to do

nedělám – I do not do

nedělej! do not do!

nedělal jsem – I did not do

nebudu dělat – I will not do

nedělal bych – I would not do

byl bych neudělal or nebyl bych udělal – I would not have done

není děláno – it is not done

Unlike English, a negative pronoun must be used with a negative verb (using a positive verb is ungrammatical) (double negative):

Nic nemám. – I have nothing. (literally I do not have nothing.)

Nikdy to nikomu neříkej. – Never say it to anybody. (literally Do not never say it to nobody.)

Irregular future tense:

• jít – půjdu, půjdeš, půjde; půjdeme, půjdete, půjdou
• být – budu, budeš, bude; budeme, budete, budou

Irregular negation:

• být – 3rd person sg: není (not neje)

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