brát / vzít — to take | Czech Grammar

brát / vzít ("to take") is the most famous irregular verb pair in Czech, and the reason is worth understanding from the start: the two members come from completely different roots. brát (imperfective) and vzít (perfective) are not two forms of one word the way dělat and udělat are — they are two separate verbs that the language has yoked together to serve as a single aspect pair. Linguists call this suppletion, and brát/vzít is the standard textbook example of it in Czech, exactly as English "go / went" is for tense.

Suppletion: why two roots?

Most Czech aspect pairs share a stem and differ only by a prefix or suffix (dělat → udělat, psát → napsat). brát/vzít does not. There is no orthographic bridge between br- and vz-; you simply have to learn both and know that they pair up. This is not a regularity you can derive — it is a fact about the lexicon.

	Imperfective	Perfective
Infinitive	brát	vzít
Present stem	ber-	vezm-
Past (m.)	bral	vzal

Beru léky každé ráno.

I take medicine every morning. (habitual — imperfective brát)

Vezmu si jen tohle a jdeme.

I'll just take this and we'll go. (single action — perfective vzít)

💡

Don't waste energy hunting for a connection between brát and vzít — there isn't one. Treat them as two words you memorize together, the way an English learner memorizes "go" and "went." Recognizing that they form one pair is the whole trick.

For why pairs exist at all, see what is aspect and the aspect pairs overview.

Present tense — brát (imperfective)

The infinitive is brát, but the present stem is ber- — the r of the root surfaces with an e before the endings. This belongs to the -e- conjugation class (the nese / bere type). Describes taking as a habit, a repeated action, or a process.

Person	Form	Meaning
já	beru	I take / I'm taking
ty	bereš	you take
on / ona / ono	bere	he / she / it takes
my	bereme	we take
vy	berete	you take
oni / ony / ona	berou	they take

Bereš si cukr do kávy?

Do you take sugar in your coffee?

V práci nás neberou vážně.

At work they don't take us seriously.

See the present paradigm of this class at class -e- (nese / bere).

Present-future of vzít (perfective)

vzít is perfective, so its present-form endings express the future — a single completed taking. The present stem is vezm-, again unrelated to the infinitive shape vzít.

Person	Form	Meaning (future)
já	vezmu	I'll take
ty	vezmeš	you'll take
on / ona / ono	vezme	he / she / it will take
my	vezmeme	we'll take
vy	vezmete	you'll take
oni / ony / ona	vezmou	they'll take

Vezmu tě do práce autem.

I'll take you to work by car.

Vezmeme to nejkratší cestou.

We'll take the shortest way.

Past tense

Both members form the past from an l-participle plus the být auxiliary in the first and second persons, with gender agreement. The imperfective participle is bral; the perfective is vzal (with the feminine vzala and masculine-animate plural vzali). See forming the past tense.

Subject	brát (imperfective)	vzít (perfective)
já (m.)	bral jsem	vzal jsem
já (f.)	brala jsem	vzala jsem
on	bral	vzal
ona	brala	vzala
ono	bralo	vzalo
my (m. anim.)	brali jsme	vzali jsme
my (f.)	braly jsme	vzaly jsme

Bral jsem ty léky tři měsíce.

I took those pills for three months. (duration — imperfective, male speaker)

Vzala si dovolenou a odjela k moři.

She took time off and went to the seaside. (completed — female subject)

The suppletion, side by side

Seeing all the forms in one frame makes the two-root structure unmistakable: nothing in the left column shares material with the right.

Form	Imperfective (brát)	Perfective (vzít)
infinitive	brát	vzít
present (já)	beru	vezmu (future)
past (m.)	bral	vzal
imperative (ty)	ber	vezmi

Normálně beru autobus, ale dnes vezmu taxíka.

I normally take the bus, but today I'll take a taxi. (habit = brát, one occasion = vzít — both in one sentence)

Imperative

The imperatives, too, are built on the separate stems: ber from ber-, vezmi from vezm-.

Person	brát	vzít
ty	ber	vezmi
my	berme	vezměme
vy	berte	vezměte

Vezmi si deštník, prší.

Take an umbrella, it's raining. (one specific action — perfective)

Neber si to tak!

Don't take it so hard! (negative commands prefer the imperfective)

Government and the reflexive vzít si / brát si

Both members take a direct object in the accusative (accusative verbs). Extremely common is the reflexive vzít si / brát si with the dative reflexive si, "to take for oneself" — to help oneself to something, to pick one up, to take it along.

Vezmu si to.

I'll take it. / I'll have this one. (to = accusative; si = 'for myself')

Berte si, je toho dost!

Help yourselves, there's plenty! (at the table)

Vzali se loni v létě.

They got married last summer. (vzít se = to marry, an idiom literally 'to take each other')

Common mistakes

❌ Budu vzít taxíka.

Wrong — budu never combines with a perfective infinitive like vzít.

✅ Vezmu si taxíka. / Budu brát taxíka.

I'll take a taxi. / I'll be taking a taxi (regularly).

❌ Vzeju si to. / Bru si to.

Wrong stems — the present forms are vezmu (perfective) and beru (imperfective).

✅ Vezmu si to. / Beru si to.

I'll take it. / I take it (habitually).

❌ Každé ráno vezmu léky.

Wrong aspect — a daily habit is imperfective.

✅ Každé ráno beru léky.

Every morning I take medicine.

❌ Ber si deštník, prší.

Odd — a one-off command here should be perfective.

✅ Vezmi si deštník, prší.

Take an umbrella, it's raining.

💡

The single most common slip is reaching for budu with vzít. Whenever you want a future "I'll take," the perfective present-form vezmu already is the future — no auxiliary required.

Now practice Czech

Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.

Start learning Czech→