Tenses - Slovesný čas¶

Basic provisions¶

There are three tenses in Czech:

minulý čas (past tense)
přítomný čas (present tense)
budoucí čas (future tense)

Imperfective verbs feature all three tenses.

Perfective verbs feature only the past tense and future tense.

	Past tense	Present tense	Future tense
Imperfective	Pomáhal jsem mu. I was helping him.	Pomáhám mu. I am helping him.	Budu mu pomáhat. I will be helping him.
Perfective	Pomohl jsem mu. I helped him.	-	Pomůžu mu. I will help him.

Note

Go to Grammatical aspect for a complete overview of the category.

Negative forms are as follows:

	Past tense	Present tense	Future tense
Imperfective	Nepomáhal jsem mu. I wasn't helping him.	Nepomáhám mu. I am not helping him.	Nebudu mu pomáhat. I will not be helping him.
Perfective	Nepomohl jsem mu. I didn't help him.	-	Nepomůžu mu. I won't help him.

Warning

The past tense auxiliary jsem is never negated.

The future tense auxiliary budu is always negated in negative sentences.

Past tense¶

A typical past tense structure is:

graph LR
  A[-l participle of the verb<br /><b>pracova-l</b>]-- + ---B["auxiliary verb<br /><b>jsem</b>"]

The negative prefix ne- is added to the main verb; the auxiliary verb remains unchanged:

graph LR
  A[ne + -l participle of the verb<br /><b>ne</b>pracoval]-- + ---B["auxiliary verb<br /><b>jsem</b>"]

-l participle¶

The past tense of the verb (also referred to as an -l participle) is formed with the help of an -l suffix and personal ending that are added to the infinitive stem.

The categories of gender and number of the subject are relevant, and the past tense of the verb must agree with them.

Gender	Singular	Plural
Ma	-l	-li
Mi	-l	-ly
F	-la	-ly
N	-lo	-la

Auxiliary verb¶

The verb být (in its present tense forms) serves as an auxiliary word. It is conditioned by the grammatical person and number of the subject.

Person	Singular	Plural
1^st	jsem	jsme
2^nd	jsi	jste
3^rd	-	-

Note

Please note that the third person, both singular and plural, does not have the auxiliary verb.

The auxiliary verb is positioned in the second logical place in a sentence. ³
This means that it can be placed before or after the verb in the -l participle form, depending on the structure of the sentence.

Compare:

Já jsem pracoval. = Pracoval jsem.

When the subject pronoun is omitted (which is very typical in the Czech language), the auxiliary verb cannot be the first word and the word order in the sentence is rearranged.

Examples¶

English	Czech With subject pronoun	Czech Without subject pronoun	Subject is
Singular
I worked.	Já jsem pracoval. Já jsem pracovala.	Pracoval jsem. Pracovala jsem.	Ma F
You worked.	Ty jsi pracoval. Ty jsi pracovala.	Pracoval jsi. Pracovala jsi.	Ma informal F informal
He worked.	On pracoval.	Pracoval.	Ma
She worked.	Ona pracovala.	Pracovala.	F
Plural
We worked.	My jsme pracovali. My jsme pracovaly.	Pracovali jsme. Pracovaly jsme.	Ma F
You worked.	Vy jste pracoval. Vy jste pracovala. Vy jste pracovali. Vy jste pracovaly.	Pracoval jste. Pracovala jste. Pracovali jste. Pracovaly jste.	Ma formal F formal Ma PL F PL
They worked.	Oni pracovali. Ony pracovaly.	Pracovali. Pracovaly.	Ma F

The subject can be a neuter gender word. It is rare - but not excluded - for the 1^st and 2^nd person singular/plural (assuming someone will refer to themselves in the neuter gender), but it is relatively common for the 3^rd person singular/plural.

The overview can be completed as follows:

English	Czech With subject pronoun	Czech Without subject pronoun	Comment
Singular
I worked.	Já jsem pracovalo.	Pracovalo jsem.	Unusual
You worked.	Ty jsi pracovalo.	Pracovalo jsi.	Unusual
It worked.	Ono pracovalo.	Pracovalo.	Děvče pracovalo. (A girl worked.)
Plural
We worked.	My jsme pracovala.	Pracovala jsme.	Unusal
You worked.	Vy jste pracovala.	Pracovala jste.	Unusal
They worked.	Ona pracovala.	Pracovala.	Děvčata pracovala. (Girls worked.)

Note

Neuter plural forms resemble feminine singular forms.

The subject is usually understandable from the context as well as from the form of the verb.

When two (or more) verbs are used within the same sentence, it is recommended to repeat the auxiliary for each verb:

Ráno jsem pracoval a potom jsem šel na oběd.
(I worked in the morning and then I went to lunch.)

Important

When used with a reflexive verb in the 2^nd singular person, the auxiliary verb becomes part of the reflexive:

Kde jsi se narodil? → Kde ses narodil?

Co jsi si koupil? → Co sis koupil?

This reduction is considered grammatical and correct.

In spoken Czech, the second person singular auxiliary verb can be reduced to -s:

Pracovals? (Did you work?) instead of Pracoval jsi?

Cos dělal? (What were you doing?) instead of Co jsi dělal?

This reduced form still follows the second position rule, so it is "glued" to the first word.

How to make -l participle¶

Regular¶

The regular -l participle form is created in the following way:

graph LR
A[infinitive stem without -t<br /><b>pracova-</b><strike>t</strike>]-- + ---B["-l suffix<br /><b>-l-"]-- + ---C["personal ending<br /><b>-∅<br />-a<br />-o<br />-i<br />-y</br />-a</b>"]

Many verbs create the -l participle regularly. Among them are:

-ovat verbs

kupovat → kupoval
verbs with -at infintive

dělat → dělal
verbs with -et/-ět infinitive

držet → držel

rozumět → rozuměl
verbs with -it infinitive

vařit → vařil

If the infinitive ends in a long vowel, shortening often occurs:

nést → nesl
žít → žil
mýt → myl
stát se → stal se

Note

Interesting moments might appear:

stát se (to become, to happen) → stal se

stát (to stand, to be located) → stál

prát (to wash (clothes) → pral

přát (to wish) → přál

Irregular but predictable¶

Verbs with the infintive structure consonant + nout (e.g. spadnout - fall down) have a short -l participle: spadl
- More examples:
  - tisknout → tiskl (to print)
  - zbohatnout → zbohatl (to become rich)
  - lehnout si → lehl si (to lie down)
  - sednout si → sedl si (to sit down)
Note

In spoken Czech, longer variants for masculine subjects are also commonly used:

tisknul, zbohatnul, lehnul si

For subjects other than masculine, the shortening is more common:

tiskla/tisklo/tiskli ... vs. tisknula/tisknulo, tisknuli (the first being more common)

Irregular¶

An unspecified amount of verbs create the -l participle irregularly. See the selected list below:

Verb	-l participle	English
chtít	chtěl	to want
číst	četl	to read
jíst	jedl	to eat
jít	šel ¹	to go (on foot)
krást	kradl	to steal
mít	měl	to have
moct	mohl	to can
najít	našel	to find
obléct (se)	oblékl obléknul	to dress, to get dresses
otevřít	otevřel	to open
péct	pekl	to bake
plést (se, si)	pletl	to knit, to confuse ²
pomoct	pomohl	to help
růst	rostl	to grow
říct	řekl	to say
umřít	umřel	to die
vést	vedl	to bring, escort (by walking
vzít	vzal	to take
začít	začal	to start, to begin
zavřít	zavřel	to close
zamést	zametl	to sweep (up), broom
zapomenout	zapomněl	to forget

Present tense¶

See Conjugation groups for a complete overview.

Future tense¶

Future tense of perfective verbs¶

Perfective verbs use the indicative ("present tense form") to refer to the future.

See Conjugation groups and Grammatical aspect.

Future tense of imperfective verbs¶

The future tense of imperfective verbs is formed in the following way:

graph LR
  A[conjugated future tense of verb <i>být</i> <br /><b>budu</b>]-- + ---B["infinitive of the main verb<br /><b>pracovat</b>"]

The negative prefix ne- is added to the auxiliary verb, the main verb remains in the infinitive:

graph LR
  A[ne + conjugated future tense of verb <i>být</i> <br /><b>ne</b>budu]-- + ---B["infinitive of the main verb<br /><b>pracovat</b>"]

The future tense auxiliary verb být is conjugated in the following way:

Person	Singular	Plural
1.	budu	budeme
2.	budeš	budete
3.	bude	budou

The future auxiliary is usually positioned before the main verb:

Zítra nebudu pracovat. - I will not work tomorrow.

For the sake of emphasis, it can be placed at the end of a sentence:

Pracovat teda zítra opravdu nebudu. - I'm definitely not working tomorrow.

Full past tense overview: šel / šla / šlo // šli, šly, šla ↩
Verb plést (also plést si, plést se) has a lot of meanings. Check them out in the dictionary. ↩
See the Second position rule in detail. ↩