Czech has not one passive but two, and they are not stylistic twins — they carve up the work differently. The participial passive (být + a passive participle: dům byl postaven, "the house was built") behaves much like the English be + past participle and is the natural home for a specific completed result with a nameable agent. The reflexive passive (the verb plus se: staví se dům, "a house is being built") has no real English equivalent and is the everyday workhorse for general, habitual, and agentless statements. The single biggest improvement an English speaker can make to their Czech is to stop reaching for the participial passive by reflex and let the reflexive passive do most of the lifting.
The participial passive: být + -n/-t participle
This passive is built from být ("to be") plus the short (nominal) passive participle, which ends in -n or -t and agrees with the subject in gender and number, exactly like a short adjective.
| Subject | Participle | Example |
|---|---|---|
| masculine sg. | postaven | dům byl postaven |
| feminine sg. | postavena | škola byla postavena |
| neuter sg. | postaveno | město bylo postaveno |
| masc. anim. pl. | postaveni | vojáci byli postaveni |
| fem. / masc. inan. pl. | postaveny | domy byly postaveny |
| neuter pl. | postavena | okna byla postavena |
Ten dům byl postaven v roce 1925.
That house was built in 1925.
Okna byla otevřena dokořán.
The windows were thrown wide open.
The agent, if you name it, goes in the instrumental case — this is the construction's special power, because only here can you say by whom.
Dohoda byla podepsána oběma stranami.
The agreement was signed by both parties.
Tahle kniha byla napsána slavným spisovatelem.
This book was written by a famous writer.
Because it ties the action to a specific result and can name a doer, the participial passive belongs to the completed, the formal, and the written: news reports, contracts, official notices, academic prose. It pairs most naturally with perfective verbs (postaven, napsán, podepsán), where the participle reports a finished event or its resulting state.
Pachatel byl zatčen druhý den ráno.
The perpetrator was arrested the next morning.
The reflexive passive: verb + se
The reflexive passive turns the patient into the grammatical subject and marks the clause with the clitic se. There is no auxiliary and no participle — you just conjugate the verb in the normal way and add se.
Vedle nás se staví nový dům.
A new house is being built next to us.
Ta kniha se prodává výborně.
That book is selling really well.
Dveře se otevírají automaticky.
The doors open automatically.
Word order is flexible because se is a clitic that wants the second position in its clause. With a fronted subject you get Dům se staví; with the verb fronted (and no subject, or the subject after the verb) you get Staví se dům. Both are correct; the second is the more "presentational" order, common when introducing new information.
When there is no patient to promote to subject at all, the same se gives you the impersonal passive — a subjectless statement about what is or isn't done. This is the standard way to render English signs and general rules.
Tady se nekouří.
No smoking here.
Jak se to píše?
How do you spell that?
V Česku se jezdí vpravo.
In the Czech Republic you drive on the right.
The reflexive passive is the default for general, habitual, and agentless statements, and it dominates ordinary speech. Crucially, it normally cannot name a human agent: there is no natural way to add a by-phrase to se. If you must say who did it, you switch to the participial passive or to a plain active sentence.
Aspect divides the labour too
Aspect runs straight through both passives. Perfective participles report a bounded result (byl napsán — it got written, it is written); imperfective verbs, especially in the reflexive passive, describe a process or habit (kniha se píše — the book is being written; kniha se prodává — the book sells / is on sale). Choosing the wrong aspect produces the wrong meaning even when the passive type is right.
Most byl postaven za dva roky.
The bridge was built in two years.
Most se právě staví.
The bridge is being built right now.
The first is a finished result (perfective participle); the second is an ongoing process (imperfective reflexive). English uses "was built" / "is being built," but Czech encodes the contrast through aspect, not through a progressive auxiliary.
A decision guideline
| Use the participial passive when… | Use the reflexive passive when… |
|---|---|
| you describe a specific completed result | you state a general, habitual, or recurring fact |
| you want to (or might) name the agent in the instrumental | there is no agent, or you deliberately leave it open |
| the register is formal or written (news, law, academia) | the register is neutral or conversational |
| the verb is perfective and reports an event/result | the verb is imperfective and reports a process |
The English-speaker pitfall is over-using the participial passive, because it maps one-to-one onto English be + past participle. But where English says "Breakfast is served from seven" or "Tickets are sold online," Czech overwhelmingly prefers the reflexive: Snídaně se podává od sedmi, Vstupenky se prodávají online. The participial versions are grammatical but sound stiff and bureaucratic for everyday rules.
Snídaně se podává od sedmi do deseti.
Breakfast is served from seven to ten.
Vstupenky se prodávají online i na místě.
Tickets are sold online and on site.
Common mistakes
❌ Dům se staví dělníky.
Incorrect — the reflexive passive can't take an instrumental agent.
✅ Dům je stavěn dělníky.
The house is being built by workers. (or, plainly: Dům staví dělníci.)
❌ Tady mluví se česky.
Incorrect — the clitic se must stand in second position.
✅ Tady se mluví česky.
Czech is spoken here.
❌ Snídaně je podávána od sedmi.
Incorrect — over-formal participial passive for a general rule.
✅ Snídaně se podává od sedmi.
Breakfast is served from seven.
❌ Ten obchod se otevře každý den v devět.
Incorrect — a recurring property needs the imperfective, not the perfective.
✅ Ten obchod se otevírá každý den v devět.
That shop opens every day at nine.
The unifying lesson: when you want to say who did something to a specific result, use být + participle with the agent in the instrumental. For everything general, habitual, or agentless — which is most of the time — use se, mind its second-position placement, and let aspect carry the process-versus-result distinction.
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Start learning Czech→Related Topics
- The Participial Passive (být + -n/-t participle)B2 — Forming the periphrastic passive with být and the passive participle.
- The Reflexive Passive (dělá se)B2 — Using se to form an agentless passive/impersonal.
- Choosing Between the Two PassivesB2 — A decision guide for when to use the reflexive passive (se) versus the participial passive (být + participle) in Czech.
- Impersonal Constructions with seB2 — Using se for generic 'one / you / people' statements — Jak se tam dostane?, Nesmí se kouřit, Říká se, že…, Jak se to píše? — where the verb is third-person singular and the subject is unexpressed and general.
- Expressing the Agent in the PassiveC1 — Naming who or what did it with the instrumental case (and od + genitive).
- The Instrumental as the Passive AgentB2 — Marking the doer of a passive verb with the bare instrumental.