jíst / sníst — to eat (aspect pair card) | Czech Grammar

This is the aspect-pair card for "to eat." The imperfective jíst describes eating as an activity ("I'm eating," "I eat meat"); the perfective sníst packages it as a finished whole — you eat the thing up, down to the last bite. There is also a useful third member, the reflexive najíst se ("to eat one's fill"), which changes both the meaning and the case. For the full athematic paradigm of jíst — including the future, all the past forms, and why "they eat" is the surprising jedí — see the dedicated jíst verb page; here we focus on the aspect contrast.

The pair at a glance

Both verbs are athematic (their endings glue almost directly onto the root) and both hide a -d- that vanishes in the smooth present forms but returns in the plural, the past, and the imperative.

Person	jíst (impf.) — present	sníst (pf.) — future meaning
já	jím	sním
ty	jíš	sníš
on / ona / ono	jí	sní
my	jíme	sníme
vy	jíte	sníte
oni	jedí	snědí

Past: jedl / jedla / jedlo / jedli / jedly / jedla and snědl / snědla / snědlo / snědli / snědly / snědla (note the ě in snědl). Imperative: jez / jezte and sněz / snězte.

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The -d- is the soul of both verbs. It hides in the smooth present (jím, jíš, jí / sním, sníš, sní) and springs back in jedí / snědí (they eat / they'll eat up), in the past jedl / snědl, and in the imperative jez / sněz. If you build the past on the smooth stem you get the non-word *jíl — always reach for the d-stem instead.

What changes with aspect

The grammar is identical; the meaning is the contrast. Jíst leaves the action open — eating in progress, or eating as a habit, with no endpoint in view. Sníst seals it: a specific portion, consumed completely. Because sníst is perfective, its present-tense forms (sním, sníš, sní…) point to the future — "I'll eat it (all)."

Každý den jím k snídani ovesnou kaši.

Every day I eat porridge for breakfast. (habit — imperfective)

Sním to do posledního sousta, neboj.

I'll eat it up to the last bite, don't worry. (finished whole — perfective)

Sněz si tu polévku, než vystydne.

Eat up your soup before it gets cold.

The same split runs through the past tense, and getting it right is the whole game of Czech aspect:

Včera večer jsem jedl chipsy a koukal na film.

Last night I was eating crisps and watching a film. (activity — male speaker)

Snědl jsem celou tabulku čokolády naráz.

I ate a whole bar of chocolate in one go. (finished it off — male speaker)

In the first, jedl leaves the crisps as a background activity; in the second, snědl tells you the chocolate is gone. English needs extra words ("ate up," "in one go," "the whole…") to force the same reading that Czech builds into the verb itself.

What the verbs govern: the accusative

Whatever you eat goes in the accusative — a plain direct object with no preposition. This holds for both jíst and sníst. (More on object-taking verbs at accusative verbs.)

Maso skoro nejím, ale rybu si dám ráda.

I hardly eat meat, but I'll happily have fish. (female speaker)

Kdo snědl ten poslední koláč?

Who ate that last pastry?

The accusative is most visible on feminine nouns (polévka → polévku, čokoláda → čokoládu); on many masculine and neuter foods it looks unchanged (chleba, maso), but the case is the same.

najíst se — to eat one's fill

The third member of the family is the reflexive najíst se (always with se): "to eat enough, to get a proper meal in you." Its focus is not the food but you reaching satisfaction, so it is normally used with no object at all — you don't say what you ate, just that you've eaten your fill. Present-future najím se, najíš se, najedí se; past najedl se, najedla se.

Konečně jsme se pořádně najedli, byli jsme vyhládlí.

We finally ate a proper meal, we were starving.

Najez se, čeká nás dlouhá cesta.

Eat up (have a good meal), we've a long journey ahead.

When you do name what you filled up on, najíst se takes the genitive (a partitive "eat one's fill of something"), not the accusative — exactly parallel to how its drinking cousin napít se takes the genitive:

Najedl jsem se buchet a teď bych si zdříml.

I've had my fill of buns and now I could do with a nap. (male speaker)

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Three verbs, three jobs. jím polévku = "I'm eating soup" (activity, accusative); sním polévku = "I'll eat the soup (all of it)" (perfective, accusative, future meaning); najím se = "I'll eat my fill" (reflexive, usually no object, or genitive of what). Choosing the right one is the heart of Czech aspect.

Common mistakes

❌ Pomalu jsem snědl oběd, ještě jsem nedojedl.

Aspect clash — sníst means finished, so it can't be 'still not done'.

✅ Pomalu jsem jedl oběd, ještě jsem nedojedl.

I was eating lunch slowly, I hadn't finished yet.

If the eating is unfinished or still in progress, you need the imperfective jíst. The perfective sníst asserts the food is gone, which contradicts "not finished yet."

❌ Snědl jsem se u babičky.

Wrong verb — sníst is not reflexive; for 'I ate my fill' use najíst se.

✅ Najedl jsem se u babičky.

I had a good meal at grandma's. (male speaker)

To say you ate enough / got fed, use the reflexive najíst se. Sníst needs a thing to finish off and never takes se in this meaning.

❌ Najedl jsem se celou pizzu.

Wrong case — najíst se doesn't take an accusative object.

✅ Snědl jsem celou pizzu.

I ate the whole pizza. (male speaker)

If you name a whole thing you finished, that's the accusative with sníst. Najíst se is intransitive (or takes a partitive genitive, never an accusative whole).

❌ Naše děti jí všechno.

Wrong number — jí is 3rd singular; the plural is jedí.

✅ Naše děti jedí všechno.

Our kids eat everything.

The buried d returns in the 3rd-person plural: "they eat" is jedí, not jí.

Key takeaways

jíst = imperfective (eating as activity or habit); sníst = perfective (eat it up, finish a specific portion).
Both are athematic with a hidden -d-: present jím / sním, plural jedí / snědí, past jedl / snědl, imperative jez / sněz.
Both take the accusative for what is eaten.
najíst se (reflexive) = "eat one's fill"; normally no object, or a partitive genitive of what you fill up on.
For the complete jíst paradigm (future, full past, negation), see the jíst verb page.

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