Everybody gets a little tense when it comes to tenses. However, I have GREAT news for you. If you’re a native English speaker (or a native speaker of any Germanic language), you’ll find Czech tenses super-easy to learn and understand.

The (otherwise complicated) Czech language uses only three tenses: past, present, and future. That’s it.

You still have to be aware of grammatical gender, declension, and conjugation of course, but applying the tenses correctly is actually a breeze.

This is going to be short and sweet. Let’s learn about Czech verb tenses!

Table of Contents

1. The Present Tense in Czech
2. The Past Tense in Czech
3. The Future Tense in Czech
4. Verb Conjugation and Auxiliary Verbs
5. How CzechClass101.com Helps You Learn Czech in a Fun Way

1. The Present Tense in Czech

The rules for using the present tense in Czech are very simple.

Is it happening right now? Does it happen regularly? Then use the present tense.

➢ Přítomný čas (“present tense”) is used to describe ongoing actions.
➢ Grammatical gender, declension, and conjugation rules apply when using all tenses.
➢ The ending of the verb changes for every gender, person, and case.
➢ Minulý čas (“past tense”) is used to denote past actions without a time reference—actions that happened in the past and might happen in the future.

Before you decide whether it’s correct to use the present tense, you’ll need to figure out which conjugation type the verb falls under. 

You can simply memorize all the possible endings. I promise that, eventually, you’ll not only remember but also be able to “feel” what’s correct (I suggest you read a lot in Czech). In case your vocabulary needs a boost, check out our list of the 50 most commonly used verbs.

Verb endings:

Person	Singular	Plural
1st (já / my) – “I” / “we”	-u / -i / -m	-eme / -íme / -áme
2nd (ty / vy) – “you” / “you”	-eš / -íš / -áš	-ete / -íte / -áte
3rd (on, ona, ono/oni) – “he, she, it/they”	-e / -í / -á	-ejí / -ějí / -í / -ou / -ají

Let’s look at some examples:

English Tense	English	Czech
Present Simple	“I brush my teeth twice a day.” “Do you sew your own clothes?” “I don’t sew my own clothes.” “He doesn’t know about it.”	Čistím si zuby dvakrát denně. Šiješ si svoje vlastní šaty? Nešiju si svoje vlastní šaty. Neví o tom.
Present Perfect	“We have been to Italy several times.” “I have seen it before.” (feminine)	Několikrát jsme byli v Itálii.Už jsem to viděla. Exception: We need to use the past tense here, as explained above.
Present Continuous	“You are sitting in my chair.” “We aren’t doing anything right now.” “We are reading an article.”	Sedíš na mojí židli. My právě teď nic neděláme. Čteme je článek.
Present Perfect Continuous	“They have been living here since last year.” “I have been reading the book for months now.” “We have always been doing it this way.”	Bydlí tu od loňského roku. Já tu knihu čtu už celé měsíce. Vždycky to takhle děláme.

When to use přítomný čas in Czech (summary)

You use the přítomný čas when describing:

1. Habitual or routine actions
2. General (timeless) facts
3. Actions that are happening right now
4. Actions that started in the past and continue into the present (and may continue into the future)

Holky se smějí. – “The girls are laughing.”

2. The Past Tense in Czech

➢ The past tense in Czech is formed with the past participle in the proper gender form combined with an auxiliary verb, which indicates the person and number of the verb’s subject with a past form of the main verb.
➢ It replaces every past tense in English.
➢ The most common ending is -l + -a/-o/-i/-y (feminine, neuter, and plural).
➢ There is no tense shifting in reported speech.

Examples:

English Tense	English	Czech
Past Simple	“He cooked dinner last night.” “We arrived two days ago.” “It didn’t happen like that!”	Včera večer uvařil večeři. Přijeli jsme před dvěma dny. Takhle se to nestalo!
Past Continuous	“We were watching TV when it happened.” “She was driving when he called her.” “Her animals looked healthy and happy.”	Dívali jsme se na televizi, když se to stalo. Řídila, když jí zavolal. Její zvířata vypadala šťastně a zdravě.
Past Perfect	“I didn’t watch the movie; I had seen it last week.” (feminine) “The girls were hungry because they hadn’t eaten all day.”	Nedívala jsem se na film, viděla jsem ho minulý týden. Holky měly hlad, protože celý den nic nejedly.
Reported Speech	“He said he loved her.” “She texted me that the report was ready.”	Řekl, že ji miluje. Napsala mi, že je ta zpráva hotová. Past simple + present simple

When to use minulý čas in Czech (summary)

You use minulý čas when describing:

1. Actions that are finished
2. Actions and situations finished in the past
3. Finished actions that started in the past

This tense is also used in combination with the present simple in reported speech (řekl, že to udělá).

Někdo snědl kus dortu! – “Someone ate a piece of cake!”

3. The Future Tense in Czech

The future tense in Czech is probably the trickiest one, but if you’re able to navigate through the maze of the 12 tenses in English (let’s not even mention French and its 17 tenses), this will be a piece of cake for you.

There are a few possible ways to form this Czech-language tense: 

1. You can change the verb by modifying the stem and adding a prefix.
2. For some verbs of motion, the future tense can be formed by adding po-/pů- to the present form of the verb.
3. For imperfective verbs, we use být (“to be”) in the future tense, correct gender and person + the infinitive.

➢ It is possible to use the present simple or continuous when referring to scheduled actions and plans.

Examples:

English Tense	English	Czech
Present Simple	“It’s my birthday tomorrow.” “We have a class on Thursday.”	Zítra mám narozeniny. Ve čtvrtek máme hodinu.
Present Continuous	“I’m swimming tomorrow morning.” “They’re throwing a party next month.”	Zítra ráno jdu plavat. Příští měsíc pořádají večírek.
Will	“He will pick you up at six.” “I will show you how to do it.” “I will carry you, you can’t walk.”	Vyzvedne tě v šest. Ukážu ti, jak se to dělá. Ponesu tě, nemůžeš chodit.
Going to	“It’s going to rain, the clouds are really dark.” “I’m going to go, it’s late.”	Bude pršet, mraky jsou opravdu tmavé. Půjdu, je pozdě.

When to use budoucí čas in Czech (summary)

1. When expressing beliefs about the future
2. When we want or are willing to do something
3. Offers and promises
4. When we’re dead-set on doing something—we’re going to do it
5. Predictions based on evidence

Budou se brát. – “They will be getting married.”

4. Verb Conjugation and Auxiliary Verbs 

The past and future tenses in Czech are formed using verbs that provide additional conjugations for other verbs, which is their only role in the sentence. They’re called pomocná slovesa, or “helping verbs.”

➢ In Czech, only the verb být (“to be”) is used as an auxiliary verb to form the past and future tenses.

Být – To Be – To Exist

This short and simple word, embellished by a special character called čárka, plays a very important role in the Czech language.

Let’s look at the many uses of být:

1.	To be	Ona je krásná.	“She is beautiful.”
2.	To exist	V tom pokoji byla dvě okna.	“There were two windows in that room.”
3.	Auxiliary used to form the past tense with verbs in the past participle form	Šla jsem domů.	“I went home.”
4.	Auxiliary used to form the future tense with verbs in the infinitive	Budu ti číst.	“I will read to you.”
5.	Auxiliary used to form the conditional mood with verbs in the past participle form	Nekupoval bych to.	“I wouldn’t buy it.”
6.	Auxiliary used to form the passive voice with verbs in the past participle	Byla překvapená.	“She was surprised.”
7.	Auxiliary used to form the conditional forms of verbs with past and passive participles	Kdybych věděla, že jsi tu, počkala bych v autě.	“Had I known you were here, I would have waited in the car.”

It’s important that you learn all of the forms for this word (a.k.a. conjugation). You pretty much wouldn’t be able to form any tense in Czech without it. I hope I didn’t scare you.

Present Conjugation

Person	Singular/Plural – Czech	Singular/Plural – English
1st (já / my) – “I” / “we”	jsem/jsme	am/are
2nd (ty / vy) – “you” / “you”	jsi/jste	are/are
3rd (on, ona, ono/oni) – “he, she, it/they”	je/jsou	is/are

Past Participle

➢ When referring to a singular subject, you need to know the grammatical gender of the subject.

	Masculine Animate	Masculine Inanimate	Feminine	Neuter
Singular	byl	byl	byla	bylo
Plural	byli	byly	byly	byla

Future Tense

➢ In the future tense, být works like the English future auxiliary verb “will.”

	Masculine Animate	Masculine Inanimate	Feminine	Neuter
Singular	bude	bude	bude	bude
Plural	budou	budou	budou	budou

	1st Person	2nd Person	3rd person
Singular	budu	budeš	bude
Plural	budeme	budete	budou

Conditional

➢ When forming the conditional, you’ll use the verb být the same way as “would” is used in English.

	1st Person	2nd Person	3rd person
Singular	bych	bys	by
Plural	bychom	byste	by

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5. How CzechClass101.com Helps You Learn Czech in a Fun Way

That’s it, guys! I hope you enjoyed this article on Czech verb tenses and learned something new!

If you’re taking your Czech studies seriously, you could grab a Czech grammar book or learn online (the latter of which is way more convenient).

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