Polite vs Familiar Commands | Czech Grammar

English has exactly one way to tell someone to do something: Wait! — whether you're talking to your best friend or to a judge. Czech does not. The command form itself encodes social distance: there is a familiar imperative for people you're on first-name terms with, and a polite imperative for strangers, elders, and anyone you treat with formal respect. Picking the wrong one isn't a grammar slip you can shrug off — it's a social signal, and the familiar form aimed at a stranger sounds genuinely rude. This page shows you how the imperative tracks the ty/vy distinction and how to soften commands so they land as polite requests.

Two address systems, two imperatives

Czech splits "you" into two registers: ty (singular, familiar — tykání) for friends, family, children, peers, and vy (plural or formal singular — vykání) for strangers, older people, officials, and anyone you show respect to. The imperative simply follows whichever pronoun you'd use:

You address them as…	Imperative form	Example
ty (familiar singular)	2nd singular	Počkej! — Wait!
vy (group, or polite singular)	2nd plural	Počkejte! — Wait! (pl./polite)

The polite imperative is formally identical to the plural one: the 2pl form does double duty as a group command and as the respectful way to command one person. There is no separate "polite singular" to learn — if you'd say vy to them, you give orders in the -te form, even to a single individual.

Počkej na mě u vchodu, hned jsem tam.

Wait for me by the entrance, I'll be right there. (to a friend — ty)

Počkejte chvíli, prosím, hned se vám budu věnovat.

Please wait a moment, I'll be right with you. (to a customer — polite vy)

The form contrast across common verbs

Mechanically, the polite form is just the familiar form plus -te (or -ejte for the dělat class). Here are the everyday commands you'll actually use, in both registers:

Familiar (ty)	Polite / plural (vy)	Meaning
Pojď sem!	Pojďte sem!	Come here!
Dej mi to.	Dejte mi to.	Give me that.
Řekni mi to.	Řekněte mi to.	Tell me that.
Otevři okno.	Otevřete okno.	Open the window.
Neboj se.	Nebojte se.	Don't worry.
Sedni si.	Posaďte se.	Sit down.

Pojď dál a posaď se, dám ti čaj.

Come in and sit down, I'll make you some tea. (familiar — a friend visiting)

Pojďte prosím dál a posaďte se.

Please come in and have a seat. (polite — a guest you address as vy)

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The polite imperative is the safe default with anyone you don't know. If you're unsure whether to use ty or vy, use vy — the worst case is sounding a touch formal, whereas a misplaced ty-command can come across as disrespectful or pushy.

Keep the register consistent

A very common slip is to start polite and then drift into the familiar form (or vice versa) within the same breath. Once you've chosen vy for someone, every verb addressed to them stays in the -te form — and the same goes for prosím tě versus prosím vás, which also track the T/V line.

Pane doktore, posaďte se a řekněte mi, co vás trápí.

Doctor, have a seat and tell me what's bothering you. (consistently polite — both verbs in -te)

Prosím vás, mohl byste mi podržet dveře?

Excuse me, could you hold the door for me? (polite prosím vás, not prosím tě)

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The register is set by your relationship, not by the sentence — so decide before you open your mouth: is this a ty person or a vy person? Make that one choice and every imperative, every prosím tě/prosím vás, and every pronoun in the conversation falls into line automatically.

A bare imperative can still sound blunt

Here's the honest part: matching the form to the register is only half of politeness. Even a correct vy-imperative — Počkejte!, Dejte mi to! — can sound curt and bossy to a stranger, because a bare command is a bare command. Native speakers cushion requests with two reliable tools.

First, prosím ("please"), which can go almost anywhere in the sentence and instantly takes the edge off:

Podržte mi to, prosím.

Hold this for me, please. (prosím softens the polite imperative)

Second, and stronger, the conditional — Mohl byste…? / Nemohl byste…? ("Could you…? / Couldn't you…?"). Phrasing a request as a conditional question is markedly more polite than any imperative, and it's what Czechs reach for with strangers, in shops, and in formal settings. (See polite requests and softening requests.)

Promiňte, mohl byste mi ukázat cestu na nádraží?

Excuse me, could you show me the way to the station? (conditional — very polite, to a male stranger)

Nemohla byste mi prosím poradit, který vlak jede do Olomouce?

Could you please advise me which train goes to Olomouc? (conditional, to a female stranger)

Note the gender in the conditional: the byste is fixed (it's the 2pl/polite auxiliary), but the participle agrees with the real person you're addressing — mohl byste to a man, mohla byste to a woman, mohli byste to a group. This is unique among the forms here: the imperative itself doesn't show the addressee's gender, but the conditional participle does.

Why this is hard for English speakers

The difficulty isn't the morphology — adding -te is trivial. It's that English fuses two distinctions Czech keeps apart. English you is both singular and plural and carries no politeness; English has no grammatical reflex of social distance at all, so the whole idea of a command form that signals respect is new. You're not just learning an ending — you're learning to read the social situation first (is this a ty person or a vy person?) and let that decision drive the grammar. That judgment call is a pragmatics topic in its own right, covered on the tykání vs vykání page; here the rule is simply: decide the pronoun, and the imperative follows.

Common Mistakes

❌ (to a shop assistant) Počkej, ještě jsem nedomluvil.

Rude — the ty-imperative to a stranger; use the polite -te form.

✅ Počkejte, prosím, ještě jsem nedomluvil.

Please wait, I haven't finished yet.

❌ Pane Nový, sedni si a podej mi to.

Inconsistent and rude — you address Mr. Nový as vy, so both verbs need the -te form.

✅ Pane Nový, posaďte se a podejte mi to.

Mr. Nový, have a seat and pass me that.

❌ (to a stranger) Prosím tě, kolik je hodin?

Incorrect register — prosím tě is familiar; to a stranger use prosím vás.

✅ Prosím vás, kolik je hodin?

Excuse me, what time is it?

❌ (to a female clerk) Mohl byste mi pomoct?

Incorrect agreement — the participle must match the woman you're addressing: mohla byste.

✅ Mohla byste mi pomoct?

Could you help me? (to a woman)

Key Takeaways

The imperative encodes register: 2sg for someone you call ty, 2pl for a group or a single person addressed politely as vy.
The polite singular and the plural are the same -te form — there's no separate polite-singular ending.
When unsure, default to the polite -te form; a misplaced familiar command sounds disrespectful.
Keep register consistent across a turn, including prosím tě (ty) vs prosím vás (vy).
Even a correct polite imperative is blunt; soften with prosím or, more strongly, the conditional Mohl/Mohla/Mohli byste…?, whose participle agrees with the addressee's gender and number.

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