Verbs: Past Tense

01

The Participle Agrees

The participle agrees with the subject in gender and number, exactly as an adjective would, so a woman and a man report the same action differently. The endings are -l, -la, -lo in the singular and -li, -ly, -la in the plural.

• Petr dělal snídani.

  Petr made breakfast.

• Eva dělala snídani.

  Eva made breakfast.

• Dělali jsme snídani.

  We made breakfast.

02

The Auxiliary

The auxiliary is the ordinary present of být: jsem, jsi, jsme, jste. It is unstressed and never begins a sentence; it takes the second slot, immediately after the first word, whatever that word happens to be.

• Včera jsem vařil.

  I cooked yesterday.

• Co jsi dělala?

  What did you do?

In the third person there is no auxiliary at all. The participle stands alone, and this is why so many past sentences look like a single word.

• Petr přišel pozdě.

  Petr arrived late.

• Děti spaly.

  The children were asleep.

03

Two Contractions

When the second-person jsi meets a reflexive verb, the two fuse. Jsi se becomes ses and jsi si becomes sis. These fused forms are the only correct ones; the separate words are simply not said.

• Kde ses narodil?

  Where were you born?

• Co sis koupila?

  What did you buy yourself?

04

The Masculine Plural Splits

In the plural the masculine has two participles: -li for men and other living beings, -ly for everything else. A mixed group of people counts as living.

• Kluci přišli pozdě.

  The boys arrived late.

• Vlaky přijely pozdě.

  The trains arrived late.

05

Participles That Insert a Vowel

Where the stem ends in a consonant, the masculine singular slips an -e- in front of the -l to make the word sayable. The other forms have an ending after the -l and drop the vowel again.

• přišel, přišla, přišli
• našel, našla, našli

• Přišel pozdě.

  He arrived late.

• Přišla pozdě.

  She arrived late.

06

The Past of být

Být forms its past from the participle byl and the same auxiliary.

• byl jsem, byl jsi, byl, byli jsme, byli jste, byli

• Byla jsem v Praze.

  I was in Prague.

• Bylo to zajímavé.

  It was interesting.

07

Making It Negative

Negation is a prefix on the participle, never on the auxiliary, and it is written as one word with it.

• Neviděl jsem to.

  I didn't see it.

• Nepřišli.

  They didn't come.

08

Which Aspect

Both aspects live in the past tense and the choice changes the meaning: an imperfective participle reports an activity, a perfective one a single event.

• Četl jsem tu knihu.

  I was reading that book.

• Přečetl jsem tu knihu.

  I read that book to the end.