For an English speaker, asking a question is a syntactic event: you flip the subject and verb, or you weave a "do" into the front of the sentence. Czech does none of that. The grammar of a Czech question is almost identical to the grammar of a statement — there is no inversion and no auxiliary helper. Yes/no questions are marked purely by intonation, and wh-questions simply put the question word first and then proceed with ordinary order. Once that sinks in, Czech questions become dramatically simpler than English ones.
Yes/no questions: same order, rising intonation
A yes/no question uses the exact same word order as the statement. The only marker is rising intonation (and, in writing, the question mark). Nothing is added, nothing is moved.
| Statement | Question | English |
|---|---|---|
| Máš čas. | Máš čas? | You have time. / Do you have time? |
| Pracuješ. | Pracuješ? | You work. / Do you work? |
| Je to drahé. | Je to drahé? | It's expensive. / Is it expensive? |
Pracuješ?
Do you work? (statement order, rising pitch)
Máš čas?
Do you have time?
This is covered in depth on its own page — see Yes/No Questions: Intonation Only and the melody itself in Intonation. The structural point for syntax is simply: yes/no = statement order.
Wh-questions: question word first, then ordinary order
For wh-questions ("what? where? whom?"), the rule is just as economical: the question word goes to the front, and the rest of the clause keeps its ordinary order. There is still no inversion and still no auxiliary.
Kde bydlíš?
Where do you live?
Kam jdeš?
Where are you going?
Co děláš?
What are you doing?
English needs "do" even in wh-questions ("Where do you live?"); Czech does not — kde bydlíš is literally "where you-live." The question word slots in at the front and everything else stays put. The full inventory of question words is on Question Words and Their Cases.
The catch: clitics stay in second position
Here is the one place where word order in questions takes care. Czech clitics — the small unstressed words like the past-tense auxiliary jsi/jsem, the reflexive se/si, and short pronouns — must sit in second position in the clause. In a wh-question, the question word is the first position, so the clitic comes immediately after it.
Co jsi řekl?
What did you say? ('jsi' sits right after 'co' — second position)
Proč ses zlobil?
Why were you angry? ('ses' = se + jsi, both clitics, right after 'proč')
Kde jsi byl?
Where were you? ('jsi' immediately after 'kde')
Notice Proč ses zlobil? — here two clitics (se and jsi) fuse into ses and land together right after the question word. Getting the clitic next to the question word, rather than next to the verb, is the single most common word-order mistake in Czech questions. The full rule, including the order in which stacked clitics line up, is on Clitics in Second Position.
The question word itself can carry case
Because Czech question words like kdo ("who") and co ("what") decline, the word that opens your question may not be in its dictionary form — it takes whatever case the verb or preposition demands, and then it goes to the front.
Koho jsi viděl?
Whom did you see? ('koho' = accusative of 'kdo', as the object of 'vidět')
Komu to dáš?
To whom will you give it? ('komu' = dative)
S kým jdeš?
Who are you going with? (the whole 'with whom' phrase fronts together)
S kým mluvíš?
Who are you talking to? (literally: with whom you-speak)
When the question word is governed by a preposition, the preposition travels to the front with it — Czech does not strand prepositions at the end the way casual English does ("Who are you going with?"). The pair s kým moves as a unit. Choosing the right case for the question word is covered in Question Words and Their Cases.
Common Mistakes
❌ Děláš ty co?
Incorrect — no inversion and no extra subject pronoun; the question word fronts
✅ Co děláš?
What are you doing?
❌ Kde do ty bydlíš?
Incorrect — Czech has no 'do'-support; just front the question word
✅ Kde bydlíš?
Where do you live?
❌ Co řekl jsi?
Incorrect — the clitic 'jsi' is glued to the verb; it must be second, right after 'co'
✅ Co jsi řekl?
What did you say?
❌ Kdo jsi viděl?
Incorrect — as the object, it needs the accusative 'koho', not nominative 'kdo'
✅ Koho jsi viděl?
Whom did you see?
❌ Kým jdeš s?
Incorrect — the preposition can't be stranded; 's kým' fronts together
✅ S kým jdeš?
Who are you going with?
Key Takeaways
- Czech does not reorder words or add an auxiliary to form questions — no inversion, no do-support.
- Yes/no questions = statement order + rising intonation.
- Wh-questions = question word first, then ordinary order.
- Clitics stay in second position, i.e. right after the question word (Co jsi řekl?, Proč ses zlobil?).
- The fronted question word carries the case the sentence requires (Koho...?, Komu...?, S kým...?), and any preposition fronts with it.
Now practice Czech
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Start learning Czech→Related Topics
- Yes/No Questions: Intonation OnlyA1 — A yes/no question in Czech keeps the exact word order of the statement and is marked by rising intonation alone — no inversion, no auxiliary, no added word.
- Question Words and Their CasesA1 — The full set of Czech question words — and the crucial fact that kdo and co decline, so the question word must take the case the verb or preposition demands.
- The Second-Position (Wackernagel) RuleB1 — Why clitics must sit in the second slot of the clause.
- Intonation of Statements and QuestionsA2 — How Czech sentence melody falls for statements and rises for yes/no questions — often the only thing that distinguishes them.