I'm beginning Czech, and find it extremely difficult. I think the difficulty is sometimes compounded by the way authors put things. For instance I wonder why the books I have speak of "perfective verbs" and "imperfective verbs" as though they were separate verbs. In each pair I have seen so far, it is the same verb (there must be exceptions), so they should speak of "verbs in the perfective" and "verbs in the imperfective", on the model of "verbs in the preterit" etc. In English grammar books they don't speak for instance, e.g. "a *preterit verb". How come this odd phraseology has cropped up in Czech manuals for foreigners? Is there some serious scientific reason for it or it sheer negligence?
I think a large distinction is that in Germanic and Romance languages (at least the ones I know), the imperfective and perfective (preterite) use the same infinitive, whereas in the Slavic languages, the infinitives are different.
Can you make some connection between verbal aspect in Czech and the subtle differences of the following English sentences: "I have been there." "I was there." I have never really studied English grammar in much detail, so even though I think I know when it is appropriate to use one of them, I couldn't tell you why... The reason I make this connection, is that in Swedish, constructs such as har varit (have been), har sett ("have seen") etc are referred to as "perfekt", and past tense such as var (was), såg (saw) is referred to as "imperfekt". Or am I just confused...?
Let's not confuse "perfect" and "perfective", "imperfect" and "imperfective". "Perfect" and "imperfect" are tenses, whereas "perfective" and "imperfective" are aspects. The best would be to use "completed" and "incompleted" for the aspects. The two aspects can be illustrated with English sentences. COMPLETED Past reference : He had read the book. Present reference : He has read the book. Future reference : He will have read the book. INCOMPLETED Past reference : He was reading the book. Present reference : He is reading the book. Future reference : He will be reading the book.
Hello, I'm also interested in this topic which is a general feature of Slavonic languages. I think that what Qcumber writes is correct, but I would add that the imperfective aspect also indicates a repeated action. In this case, you would use the present tense in English as well as in most Germanic and Romance languages. Example: Every day I go to school (každý den chodím do školy) Francesco
Frany 71: Yes, the use of aspects and tenses can be much more complex than at first sight. It is necessary to learn every one of their uses. In English for instance the indicative present is used for successive actions (commonly used in sports radio reports): e.g. "He runs down the field, kicks the ball. Josh stops him. He falls. ... Its translation in the past reference is the preterit : He ran ... kicked ... stopped ... There is also the gnomic use: e.g. Water boils at 100°C. Ditto : For these ignorant people, the earth was a flat square, and land a sort of disk surrounded by water.
