Dialogue: At Work

A short office exchange is a surprisingly dense piece of Czech grammar. In three lines you meet the formal imperative Czechs use to make a polite request, the aspect choice that decides whether a command means "do it once" or "keep doing it," a two-clitic pronoun cluster wedged into second position, and a verb that takes the dative where English takes a direct object. This page reads a typical workplace request slowly and pulls each thread.

The text

Vedoucí: Pošlete mi prosím ten dokument. Kolega: Hned vám ho pošlu. Vedoucí: A nezapomeňte zavolat klientovi.

A manager (vedoucí) asks a colleague (kolega) for a document, the colleague promises to send it, and the manager adds a reminder. Naturally: "Please send me that document. — I'll send it to you right away. — And don't forget to call the client."

Word by word

Line 1 — Pošlete mi prosím ten dokument.

• Pošlete — the formal imperative of poslat "to send," addressed to vy (the polite/plural "you"). Poslat is perfective, so this asks for a single, completed act of sending. The familiar (ty) form would be pošli.
• mi — the dative clitic "to me," the recipient of the sending. It sits in second position.
• prosím — "please." It softens the command; an imperative without it can sound curt to a non-native ear.
• ten — "that," a masculine demonstrative agreeing with dokument.
• dokument — masculine inanimate noun "document," in the accusative as the direct object — which for inanimate masculine nouns looks identical to the dictionary form.

Line 2 — Hned vám ho pošlu.

• Hned — "right away, immediately." Putting it first sets up the second-position slot for the clitics.
• vám — the dative clitic "to you" (formal), the recipient.
• ho — the accusative clitic "it," standing in for ten dokument.
• pošlu — poslat again, 1st person singular. Because poslat is perfective, this present-looking form is actually a future: "I will send." No separate "will" word is needed.

Line 3 — A nezapomeňte zavolat klientovi.

• A — "and," linking the reminder to the request.
• nezapomeňte — negated formal imperative of zapomenout "to forget": "don't forget." Note it stays perfective here — a one-off reminder, not a standing rule.
• zavolat — perfective infinitive "to call (once)," the thing not to be forgotten.
• klientovi — klient "client," in the dative. In Czech you call to someone — zavolat governs the dative, not the accusative.

Grammar in action

The formal imperative for requests

At work among people on vy terms, requests are made with the formal imperative, the -te form. It is the everyday register of an office: firm enough to be a clear instruction, polite enough — especially with prosím — not to grate. The ty imperative (pošli, zavolej) is reserved for colleagues you are genuinely close to.

Aspect inside the command: once versus repeatedly

This is the point English has no machinery for. The aspect of the imperative verb tells the listener whether you want the action done once (perfective) or done repeatedly / as an ongoing practice (imperfective). Pošlete (perfective) asks for one specific document, now. Its imperfective partner posílejte would ask the person to send things regularly — a standing instruction.

So the choice is meaningful, not stylistic: pick the perfective for "do this specific thing," the imperfective for "make a habit of this." The full picture is on the aspect in the imperative page.

Negated commands lean imperfective — but not always

Here is a twist that trips up English speakers. Czech negative commands very often flip to the imperfective, because telling someone not to do something is usually about an ongoing avoidance: Nechoďte tam "Don't go there," Nezapomínejte na to "Don't keep forgetting it." The default negated command is imperfective.

But our dialogue uses the perfective nezapomeňte. Why? Because here the negation targets a single, specific upcoming act — don't fail, this one time, to call the client. When a negative command warns against a single bad outcome, the perfective is correct and natural. When it forbids a general practice, the imperfective wins.

vám ho — stacking two clitics in second position

In Hned vám ho pošlu, two pronouns share the second-position slot: vám (dative "to you") and ho (accusative "it"). When clitics cluster, Czech enforces a strict internal order, and dative comes before accusative: vám ho, never ho vám. The same order surfaces in Pošlu vám ho and Dám vám to.

Note also that the clitics latch onto the first stressed unit of the clause. Start the sentence with Hned, and the clitics follow it; start with Pošlu, and they follow the verb (Pošlu vám ho hned). The detailed ranking lives on the clitic chain order page.

zavolat klientovi — calling takes the dative

In English you "call the client" — a direct object. In Czech, volat / zavolat in the sense of phoning someone governs the dative: you call to a person. So "the client" is klientovi (dative), not klienta (accusative). This is pure verbal government and must be learned per verb.

A whole family of "communication" verbs behaves this way — volat někomu (call), psát někomu (write), odpovědět někomu (answer), poradit někomu (advise). The verbs taking the dative page lists them.

pošlu — the perfective future

Pošlu looks like a present tense but means "I will send." This is the perfective future: a perfective verb conjugated in present-tense endings points to the future automatically. Posílám (imperfective) means "I am sending / I send"; pošlu (perfective) means "I will send (and finish)." This is why Hned vám ho pošlu is a confident promise to complete the task, not a description of doing it right now.

The contrast between this and the budu future is on the perfective future page.

Office vocabulary in context

A handful of high-frequency work words shows up constantly in these requests:

Usage note: the ty/vy register at work

Czech offices vary. In traditional firms and with superiors, colleagues stay on vy (hence pošlete, vám, nezapomeňte). In start-ups, creative agencies, and among peers of similar age, ty spreads quickly and the same dialogue becomes Pošli mi ten dokument — Hned ti ho pošlu — A nezapomeň zavolat klientovi. The grammar shifts wholesale: the imperatives lose -te (pošli, nezapomeň), and the dative clitic vám becomes ti. The safe default with someone new is vy; switch to ty only once it is offered (the offer itself is a small ritual: Můžeme si tykat?).

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• Among colleagues on vy terms, requests use the formal imperative in -te (pošlete, zavolejte, nezapomeňte), softened with prosím.
• The aspect of a command is meaningful: perfective (pošlete) = do it once; imperfective (posílejte) = do it repeatedly.
• Negative commands default to the imperfective ("don't keep doing X") but use the perfective to warn against a single slip — hence nezapomeňte (this one time).
• Clustered clitics keep a fixed order, dative before accusative: vám ho, and they never open a clause.
• Volat / zavolat "to call (phone)" governs the dative (zavolat klientovi), not the accusative.
• Pošlu is the perfective future: a perfective present form that already means "I will send."