Ahoj, I’m trying to conjugate all the verbs from The Little Czech Primer in the present tense (so following the pattern of: Já, ty, on/ona/ono, my, vy, oni/ony/ona or "I, you, he/she/it, we, you (pl), they") I would really appreciate any corrections or help.. I’ve only done half so far, once I correct my mistakes in these ones I’ll finish the rest and edit my post. Děkuji! * I’m really stuck on this one! I think it’s one of ‘those’ ones you have to just learn with no pattern to help…
Brát – to take Beru Bereš Bere Bereme Berete Berou Kupovat – to buy Kupuji Kupuješ Kupuje Kupujeme Kupujete Kupujou or Kupují Myslet – to think Myslím Myslíš Myslí Myslíme Myslíte Myslí or Myslejí Mýt – to wash * Myji or Myju Myješ Myje Myjeme Myjete Myjí or Myjou As far as I can tell the others are correct, although perhaps there are mistakes in čarkas, or there are other forms. Note that often, the 3rd person plural forms ending in -ají, -ují, etc. can be replaced colloquially with -ajou, -ujou, etc. You can also look up verb and noun forms on http://www.pravidla.cz, although they tell me that this is not an official page, and has some errors.
One more remark to the verb "navštívit" = to visit It is one of the pair navštívit/navštěvovat. The verb navštívit can't be used to express present tense. "Navštívím" means "I'm going to visit" or "I will visit" To express present we need the other verb of the pair: "navštěvuji" = to visit "I visit", "I am visiting" Navštěvovat - to visit Navštěvuji Navštěvuješ Navštívujeme Navštěvujete Navštěvují The past tense is even more interesting Navštívil jsem (from "navštívit") means "I visited" (once) e.g. I visited London in May last year. Navštívil jsem Londýn loni v květnu. Navštěvoval jsem (from "navštěvovat") means "I have (often) visited ..." (several times) I have visited my grandma since then every year. Navštěvoval jsem babičku od té doby každý rok. PS. Feel free to correct my english 8)
This is awesome, folks. I'd like to incorporate these conjugations into my site if that's okay with everyone here. Any objections?
Form "bydlejí" is not correct. But I understand where the problem is hidden. In Czech we have (apart from other classes of verbs) three classes of verb: with imperative ending on: -i (e.g.: myslet, bydlet,... > mysli, bydli) whose 3rd person plural is always -í (oni myslí, oni bydlí,...) with imperative ending on: V-j where V is vowel I or E (e.g.: spět, pít... > spěj, pij,...) whose 3rd person plural is always -Vjí (oni spějí, oni pijí...) with imperative ending on: V-j where V is vowel E e.g.: muset As "muset" is in English "to have to", there is no imperative form, but hypotheticaly, it would be "*musej" Those verbs have either -í or -ejí as the termination for 3rd person plural It is possible to say "oni musí" as well as "oni musejí" Historically, the latter is more "correct" (but both forms are allowed), but still it is reserved (although as fully codified and accepted variant with no bad colocations nor implications) to spoken Czech and the former is used in written. For stylistical reasons, it good not to interchange them and use either one or the other. However, in colloquial Czech (not low, but still not the highest form), it is possible to use for this class and the first mentiond class 3rd person plural termination -ej (oni musej, oni bydlej, oni myslej,...), but never in the second class (never say "oni spěj*" nor "oni pij"**). *the colloquial form "oni spěj" is possible, but it is from different verb "spát" (to sleep), not "spět" (to head for): spát (to sleep) 1st, sg.: já spím; imp.: spi; 3rd, pl.: oni spí (or colloquial: oni spěj) spět (to head for) 1st, sg.: já spěji/spěju; imp.: spěj; 3rd, pl.: oni spějí (or colloquial: oni spějou) **very dangerous form... as it is homophonic (and homographic) with the imperative of the same verb which is not really a problem, but it is homophonic with another word "pyj" which means litteraly "penis" (it is not a vulgarism, on the contrary, it is a word you may freely use when you are talking about it but still... no one likes if anyone says about him he's a penis). In the very mentioned form (with "oni" - they), it could be evoked, as the imperative do not really go with 3rd person plural and you are a foreigner (who are notorious to have problems with Czech conjugations especially with verb "být" - to be), it could evoke a copula (not copulation, copula is atributive construction of two nominal expressions without verb "be" meaning exactly the same as with the verb... though it is not used too much in Czech (but very common in Russian), a Czech can think that you as a foregner ommit the verb be and speak in copulas) meaning "they (are) penis(es)" (foreigners tend to have problems with declensions too).
You thought it wasn't going to happen, didn't you? I finally added it to the site, after many fits and starts in the months since this thread. http://czechprimer.org/words/verbs/ In order to provide credit where credit is due, I've linked back to this site, this forum, and this thread from my about page.
goodness Owen, it looks awesome. Thanks for the hard work. I'm sure there are many of us that will benefit from it.
I found some mistakes in the primer - conjugated perfective verbs are translated in present tense while they should be translated as future. kupovat - kupuji = I buy/am buying (correct) while koupit - koupím = I will buy (you have "I buy" which is not a correct translation)
Thanks Eleshar, I'm not surprised I'm making a mistake there. I don't have a very good understanding of the concept (although I found this article to help me). Does koupim necessarily imply a future action?
Yes, it does (well there are some more complicated cases but those are largely irrelevant: narrative future, gnomic future). There is no way, in which a verb designing single action terminated in a single point of time could exist in present. Languages using perfective aspect (perfective, not perfect aspect!) almost never use it together with present (let it be Latin or Ancient Greek).
That's great Owen. Job well done. Linking visual images to words they say really aids in the memorization. So it is very helpful. Very creative.