Talking About the Weather

Weather is the safest small talk in any language, and in Czech it is also a perfect showcase of one of the language's most alien features for English speakers: subjectless sentences. English insists on a dummy subject — "it is raining," "it's cold" — but Czech has no "it." It just says prší ("rains") and je zima ("is cold") with no subject at all. This page builds your weather vocabulary on that foundation and untangles one distinction English completely flattens: the difference between the weather being cold and you feeling cold.

There is no "it": subjectless weather

In English, "it is raining" has a grammatical subject — "it" — that refers to nothing at all. It's a placeholder the grammar demands. Czech simply omits it. The verb prší stands entirely alone and means "(it) is raining":

These are impersonal constructions: third-person-singular forms with no subject behind them. The same pattern runs through a whole family of Czech sentences; see impersonal constructions and impersonal subjectless sentences.

Je + adverb: describing the weather

The most productive weather frame is je ("is") plus a short, invariable word describing the conditions — most often an adverb in -o or -e (hezky, krásně, zataženo), though a few, like zima and horko, are predicative nouns dropped into the same slot. The one thing they are not is adjectives: they never change their ending to agree with anything, because the construction is impersonal and has no subject for an adjective to agree with.

Weather verbs and noun-based phrases

Beyond je + adverb, two impersonal verbs cover precipitation, and you can also build phrases around the nouns déšť (rain) and sníh (snow) with padá ("falls").

Note that Padá déšť and Svítí slunce do have real subjects (déšť, slunce) — these aren't subjectless — whereas Prší, Sněží, and Mrzne are fully impersonal.

The key distinction: Je zima vs. Je mi zima

Here is the point English speakers most often get wrong. English uses "cold" for two different things and barely notices: "it's cold" (the weather) and "I'm cold" (how I feel). Czech keeps them firmly apart.

• Je zima. — "It's cold" — the weather is cold, objectively, out there. (Zima also means "winter.")
• Je mi zima. — "I'm cold" — I feel cold. Literally "(it) is to me cold," with a dative experiencer mi ("to me").

That little mi changes everything. Without it, you're describing the air; with it, you're describing your own sensation. The dative pronoun names the person who experiences the feeling, and you can swap it for anyone:

Past and future weather

Because these are ordinary (if subjectless) verbs, they have a past and a future like any other. The past uses the -l participle in the neuter form (no subject to agree with, so the default neuter ending applies):

The future of prší and sněží (imperfective verbs) uses bude + infinitive:

With the je + adverb frame, the future is simply bude + adverb: Bude hezky "It'll be nice," Bude zima "It'll be cold." (See aspect in the future tense for why imperfectives need bude while perfectives don't.)

A touch of aspect: rozprší se

Czech aspect adds nuance even to weather. The plain imperfective prší ("is raining") has perfective cousins that mark the beginning of rain. Rozprší se means "it starts to (properly) rain," capturing the moment a drizzle turns into a downpour; zaprší suggests a short shower. These are perfective, so their non-past forms are future.

Weather as small talk

Weather is the classic ice-breaker, often opening with To je dnes… ("What a … today") or a tag question with co? / že? ("isn't it?"):

You'll hear these constantly after a greeting; pair them with the formulas on the greetings dialogue and you have a complete opener.

Usage note

The two reflexes to unlearn: first, do not look for a word for "it." Prší and Je zima are complete sentences exactly as they stand — adding any subject word breaks them. Second, decide whether you mean the weather or your feeling: Je zima is the air outside; Je mi zima is your own goosebumps. When you want to comment that you, personally, are cold or hot in a room, the dative pronoun (mi) is not optional — leave it out and you've changed the subject to the weather.

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• Czech weather is subjectless — no "it." Prší, Sněží, Je zima are complete sentences.
• Describe conditions with je + an invariable predicate: Je hezky, Je horko, Je zima, Je zataženo (adverbs or predicative nouns — never adjectives, so Je hezky, not Je hezká).
• Je zima = the weather is cold; Je mi zima = I feel cold (dative experiencer mi/ti/mu). English collapses both — Czech doesn't.
• Past is the neuter -l participle (pršelo); future of imperfectives is bude + infinitive (bude pršet) or bude + adverb (bude hezky).
• Perfective rozprší se / zaprší mark the onset of rain, with future meaning.