Czech grammar

Every grammar guide of Lingora’s Czech A1 course, with examples you can listen to.

01Verbs: Present TenseA Czech verb changes its ending to show who is acting. The ending alone identifies the subject, so the pronouns já (I) and ty (you) are normally left…
02Perfective and Imperfective VerbsAlmost every Czech verb belongs to a pair, and the two halves of the pair mean the same thing while presenting it differently. The imperfective member…
03Verbs: Past TenseThe Czech past tense is built from two pieces: a participle carrying the verb and its gender, and the present tense of být carrying the person. The…
04Verbs: Future TenseCzech has two ways of speaking about the future, and which one you use is decided for you by the verb's aspect rather than by what you want to say.
05Verbs: Imperative MoodCzech gives orders, requests and invitations with the imperative, and it has three forms of it: one for ty, one for vy, and one that takes the speaker in…
06Verbs: Conditional MoodThe conditional is Czech for would. It is built from the same -l participle that makes the past tense, with a special auxiliary in front of it that…
07Conditional Sentences with 'jestli' and 'kdyby'Czech splits if in two. One word introduces a condition that may well come true, another introduces one that is imagined, and the verb forms differ with…
08Purpose Clauses with 'aby'To say what something is for, Czech uses aby. Like kdyby it has the conditional auxiliary built into it and therefore changes for person, and like kdyby…
09Modal Verbs and the InfinitiveA small group of verbs says not what happens but how the speaker stands towards it - that it is necessary, possible, wanted or allowed. They are followed…
10The Verb 'být'Být is the most used verb in Czech and the least regular. It supplies the copula, the auxiliary of the past tense, the auxiliary of the future, and a…
11Reflexive Verbs with 'se' and 'si'Lots of Czech verbs come with a small extra word: se or si. Both roughly mean oneself, but most of the time you don't translate them at all. Think of…
12The Passive and Impersonal 'se'Besides marking a reflexive verb, se does a second job: it takes the doer out of the sentence. The action stays, the actor disappears, and what was the…
13Verbal PrefixesCzech builds new verbs by putting a syllable in front of an old one. The prefix does two things at once: it adds a meaning, usually one of direction, and…
14Verbal NounsAny Czech verb can be turned into a noun naming its activity. English does this with -ing; Czech does it with -ní or -tí, and the result is a full noun…
15Passive Participles and Their Short FormsCzech turns a verb into an adjective describing the thing the verb was done to. The result is a passive participle, and it behaves like any other…
16Verbs and the Cases They GovernMost Czech verbs take their object in the accusative, and that is the case to assume when you meet a new one. A sizeable minority does not, and there is…
17Three Verbs for 'to Know'English has one verb to know where Czech has three, and they are not interchangeable. Which one you need depends on what is known: a person or thing, a…
18Liking and Preferring with 'rád'Czech has no ordinary verb for to like. It uses a small word, rád, which behaves like an adjective and agrees with the person doing the liking. Its forms…
19Nouns: GenderEvery Czech noun is masculine, feminine or neuter. Gender is not a comment on what the noun means - a table is masculine and a book feminine - but it…
20Nouns: AnimacyInside the masculine gender Czech makes one further division, and it runs through the whole declension. Masculine nouns are either animate - people and…
21Nouns: Accusative CaseThe accusative is the case of the direct object: the thing the verb is done to. Where English shows the object by putting it after the verb, Czech shows…
22Nouns: Genitive CaseThe genitive is the busiest case in Czech. Its central job is to link one noun to another - the English of, and the English possessive 's - but it has…
23Nouns: Dative CaseThe dative marks the person something is given, said, shown or done for - the English indirect object. Czech uses it far more widely than English does,…
24Nouns: Locative CaseThe locative is unlike every other Czech case in one respect: it never appears on its own. A noun stands in the locative only because a preposition has…
25Nouns: Instrumental CaseThe instrumental answers the question by what means? A noun in this case, with no preposition in front of it, names the tool, the route or the method.…
26Nouns: Vocative CaseCzech has a case reserved for addressing somebody. When you call a person by name, or by their title, or by what they are, the noun changes its ending.…
27Plural-Only NounsA group of Czech nouns has no singular. They are plural in form and plural in grammar, and they stay that way even when they name a single object. Czech…
28The Dual in Parts of the BodyOld Czech had a third number beside the singular and the plural: a dual, for things that come in twos. It has otherwise vanished, but it survives intact…
29Feminine Forms of NounsWhen a Czech noun names a person by their job, nationality or role, it usually has two forms: one for a man and one for a woman. The feminine is built…
30DiminutivesCzech makes small versions of nouns freely, and it does so far more than English does. A diminutive can mean that the thing is literally small, but much…
31Adjectives: DeclensionA Czech adjective agrees with its noun in gender, number and case. Every time the noun changes its ending, the adjective changes with it, and the two are…
32Adjectives: Comparatives and SuperlativesTo say that something is bigger or the biggest, Czech changes the adjective's ending rather than putting a word in front of it. There is no equivalent of…
33Relational AdjectivesCzech turns nouns into adjectives on a very large scale. Where English strings two nouns together - office chair, apple juice - Czech makes the first one…
34Adverbs and Their FormationAlmost any Czech adjective can be turned into an adverb, and unlike the noun and the adjective an adverb never changes its form. It does not agree with…
35Personal PronounsCzech has the personal pronouns you would expect, but uses them far less than English does. The verb ending already says who is acting, so the subject…
36Pronouns: Long, Short and Prepositional FormsOutside the nominative, most Czech personal pronouns exist in more than one shape. There is a long form, a short form, and for the third person a further…
37Clitics and Word OrderCzech word order is famously free: the endings say who did what, so the words can be arranged to suit the emphasis. There is one great exception. A set…
38Possessive PronounsThe words for my, your and our behave like adjectives in Czech: they agree with the thing owned in gender, number and case, and they take no notice at…
39The Reflexive Possessive 'svůj'Czech has a possessive that English lacks. Svůj means belonging to the subject of this sentence, whoever that subject is, and it replaces the ordinary…
40DemonstrativesTen points at something. It has three genders in the singular, it declines through every case, and it is one of the most frequent words in the language -…
41The Polite 'vy'Czech has two ways of saying you to one person, and choosing between them is not optional. Ty is for family, close friends, children and animals. Vy is…
42Indefinite and Negative PronounsCzech builds a whole family of pronouns and adverbs out of a small stock of question words by putting a syllable in front. Learn the two syllables and…
43Numbers and CasesA Czech number does not simply sit in front of its noun. It decides what case that noun takes, and the rule changes at five. Getting this right is what…
44Ordinal NumbersOrdinal numbers say which one in a sequence. In Czech they are adjectives: they agree with their noun in gender, number and case, and they decline…
45Negation and Double NegativesCzech negates a verb by fixing ne- to the front of it and writing the two as one word. There is no separate word for not, and no auxiliary of the English…
46Questions and AnswersA Czech question needs no extra machinery. There is no equivalent of English do, and the word order does not have to change. A statement becomes a…
47The Dative of ExperienceA whole family of Czech sentences has no subject. Instead of saying that a person is something or has something, Czech says that a state exists and puts…
48Prepositions and Their CasesEvery Czech preposition governs a case, and the noun after it must take that case. Some prepositions govern one case only; a few govern two, and then the…
49Subordinate ClausesA Czech subordinate clause is always separated from the main clause by a comma, and the comma is compulsory in a way English commas are not. The clause…
50Relative ClausesA relative clause describes a noun that has already been named. Czech builds one with který, an adjective that agrees with that noun in gender and number…