Grammatical Tenses in Czech (Perfective & Imperfective Verbs)

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One of the key rules to understand the Czech grammar is to know whether a verb is perfective or imperfective. But what exactly do these terms mean?
0:00 Introduction
0:50 Examples with "pay"
2:24 Perfective & Imperfective verbs - Intro
3:27 How the Perfective & Imperfective verbs differ visually
4:47 Udělat x dodělat
6:06 More prefixes
11:31 Grammatical tenses: Psát vs. napsat
16:12 Grammatical tenses: Čekat vs. počkat
18:26 Announcing my new course

[@CzechbyZuzka]

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[@Patagonia116]

Děkuji moc Zuzko. Velmi dobře vídeo. Měj se hezky.

[@briand1367]

It's a pleasure to watch her videos,just what I need

[@MrHalid97]

Great job!

[@simmbolt]

Excellent

[@rajibafrad9542]

I am a new student of yours. Thanks

[@CzechbyZuzka]

Welcome to my channel!

[@KAFKUBA]

Omg you're beautiful. Great video... just what I was trying to understand. But what about "budu platit" ...is that the same "zaplatim"? Ahhhh you answered it later! You're a great teacher. This is a really difficult concept...I can't think of an example in English that is the same.

[@mdalaminhossain3784]

very effective videos, thanks

[@CzechbyZuzka]

Moc děkuju!

[@vahidborji1802]

Děkuju moc.

[@CzechbyZuzka]

Není zač!

[@rw8185]

Really good video, it surely helped me understand Czech grammar better as well as decipher between the uses of perfective and imperfective verbs. I think one way to differentiate between the use of pockal jsem and cekal jsem (to specify it further) is to say that čekal jsem is used for continuous/progressive past form: I was WAITING / we were WAITING / we had been WAITING. (the present form is used for expressing a continuous past event). And počkal jsem for simple imperfective:we waited. Even for a longer period of time such as "we waited for 3 hours" would use počkali.

[@CzechbyZuzka]

Yes, that is also a correct distinction which works most of the time. I noticed that English doesn't use the continuous tenses as much as the Czech uses imperfective verbs. We could say: _Čekal jsem minutu/chvíli/hodinu/celý den,_ whereas in English it could sound strange to say: _I was waiting a minute._

[@rw8185]

@@CzechbyZuzka I appreciate the conversation. Its generally hard to talk Czech grammar with Czech people in everyday situations because most of the times they have seldomly thought about grammar. For them its "just how you say it." Yes but why? "Not sure, its just how we speak." You are correct that Czech language seems to use the continuous past event a lot more often. You seemingly do not have the perfect verb tense form as in English: Go, went, GONE. Swim, swam, SWUM. Ring, rang, RUNG. But you have to different 2 verb forms instead. Perfective/Imperfective. You could actually say "I was waiting for only one minute for the train to arrive yesterday." "I had only been waiting for a few seconds before my date walked in." Its interesting because I study English grammar as part of my teaching profession, while also trying to learn Czech. Its makes grammar all the more interesting. The English language has an almost insurmountable amount of verb forms, just like the Spanish language, with different combinations and conjugations of the verbs. So cudos to you Czech folks for keeping it more simple and more practical. The English as you know have 12 different verb tenses with the future perfect progressive tense being an absolute firecracker. "We will (present) have (present) been (past) travelling (progressive)." I am happy I didnt have to understand the logics of that one when I was learning English.. I just picked it up by hearing it.

[@tomaszjay8115]

Ahoj Zuzko! Zajímavě jste to vysvětlila. Jako rodily mluvčí slovanského jazyka, který se učí dva jiné slovanské jazyky, musím Vám říct, že dokonavá slovesa a slovesa pochybu jsou nejtěžší, aby se je mohl student naučit. A vlastní slovanský jazyk často přitom vadí místo toho aby pomáhal, přesně protože je takový zdánlivě podobný. A to jsem, musím říct, vůbec nečekal. Děkuji Vám za Vaši práci! Mějte se hezky!

[@CzechbyZuzka]

Slovesa pohybu je velmi široké a důležité téma, na to se také v budoucnu chystám! Já naštěstí jiné slovanské jazyky ještě moc neumím, tak se mi to neplete.

[@tomaszjay8115]

@@CzechbyZuzka Tak to musíte někdy vyzkoušet. Ruština a polština jsou taky pěkné. Ale, jak jsem to už řekl, když to jednou začne, tak je nutné se je všechny učit možná celý život, v jiném případě se to všechno kráaaaaaaasně plete… 😄

[@augustipahbeeh]

I looked at the perfect tense song on KZbin about Latin and recognising the English being shown via the Rudyard Kipling poem Blue Roses I am now looking at tense in Czech because from the English tenses I am wondering if the English alphabet is bad for breathing techniques and that the Czech alphabet is good for breathing techniques throughout the language.

[@katherineandstephenshander5377]

Could you please address how to express something that one plans to do in the future? For example, what it the proper way to say "we are going on a trip to the Czech Republic" or "we will drive to Montana next week to visit my parents", etc. Thank you! Dekují!

[@CzechbyZuzka]

Thank you for the suggestion (I added it to my list and hopefully will be able to get to it soon). For now, I will show you can how to translate the sentences you mentioned: - We are going on a trip to the Czech Republic. - Jedeme/Letíme (na návštěvu/na dovolenou - difficult to say without context) do České republiky. - We will drive to Montana next week to visit my parents. - Příští týden pojedeme do Montany _za mými rodiči / navštívit moje rodiče._ You can see a similarity with English: We're going = Jedeme (or _Jdeme_ when it's on foot) We will go = Pojedeme (or _Půjdeme)_ This video might help you a bit: kzbin.info/www/bejne/j4uxZaJ_Z7eKoKM

[@pumagutten]

As they sing in the song: Udělal jsem to po svém! (Is that correct, Zuzka?)

[@CzechbyZuzka]

Oh, that took me a while, I was thinking of a Czech song with those lyrics. Yes, I did it my way, that would be the correct translation!

[@mikolaj_lewandowski]

V polštině je taková možnost povědět: "będę czekał" namísto "będę czekać". Jsem zajímavé či v češtině je stejně? Například "budu čekat" mohu užít sloveso v minulé náladě "budu čekal". Nevím proč, ale u mně oba jsou přijatelné, ale samozřejmě formálnější je první. Zdravím! Mikuláš :)

[@CzechbyZuzka]

Aha, tak to je zajímavé. V češtině tohle nemůžeme říct nikdy, nedávalo by to smysl. Buďto "Budu čekat" nebo "Počkám".