The Present Transgressive (přechodník přítomný)

The present transgressive (přechodník přítomný) is a non-finite verb form — a so-called converb — that expresses an action happening at the same time as the main verb of the sentence: Vida to, usmál se "Seeing that, he smiled." It is the close cousin of the English -ing adverbial clause ("Smiling, he left the room"), but with two differences that make it feel utterly alien to an English speaker. First, it agrees with the subject in gender and number — the -ing of English never changes, but the Czech transgressive has three different forms. Second, and far more important: almost nobody uses it any more. It is a fossil of literary and bookish Czech. You will read it in older novels, in poetry, and in a handful of frozen phrases; you will essentially never say it. This page teaches you to recognise it, decode it, and understand why a living Czech speaker reaches for a když-clause or an a-clause instead.

What it means: "while doing X"

The present transgressive answers the question what was the subject doing at the same moment? It frames a secondary, simultaneous action against the backbone of the main verb. Crucially, it is built only from imperfective verbs, because only an imperfective describes an ongoing, in-progress action — exactly the "while …-ing" meaning the form carries. (Completed prior actions are the job of the past transgressive, built from perfectives.)

The everyday Czech for that same thought is a plain coordinated clause: Usmíval se a odešel "He was smiling and left," or Odešel a usmíval se. The transgressive simply compresses the two verbs into one elegant, archaic-sounding phrase. That compression is its entire stylistic point — and the reason it survives in literature, where economy and rhythm matter.

Formation: three forms from the present stem

You build the present transgressive from the third-person plural present stem — the same stem you use for the present active participle. Strip the ending off the 3rd-plural form, then add the transgressive endings. There are three forms, governed by the gender and number of the subject:

• masculine singular — bare stem + -e or -a
• feminine and neuter singular — stem + -íc or -ouc
• plural (all genders) — stem + -íce or -ouce

Which vowel you get (-e/-íc/-íce versus -a/-ouc/-ouce) depends on the verb's present-tense class — specifically, on whether its 3rd-plural ends in -í or in -ou.

Verbs whose 3rd-plural ends in -ou (the -a/-ouc set)

When the 3rd-plural is -ou, the converb takes -a (masc. sg.), -ouc (fem./neut. sg.), -ouce (pl.):

Verbs whose 3rd-plural ends in -í (the -e/-íc set)

When the 3rd-plural is -í, the converb takes -e (masc. sg.), -íc (fem./neut. sg.), -íce (pl.):

The standard exception you must simply learn is vidět "to see": although its 3rd-plural is vidí (an -í verb), its codified transgressive follows the -a pattern — vida, vidouc, vidouce — not ❌ vidě, vidíc. The mechanical "3rd-plural minus ending plus ending" rule therefore wobbles for a handful of verbs, which is one reason native speakers themselves hesitate over transgressive formation. When in doubt, look the form up; do not guess.

Verbs whose 3rd-plural ends in -ají (the -aje set)

The large, regular dělat-type verbs (class -á) are the easiest. From the 3rd-plural dělají, you get a clean -je / -jíc / -jíce set:

The byt verb has its own well-known transgressive: jsa (masc. sg.), jsouc (fem./neut. sg.), jsouce (pl.), meaning "being." You meet it most in the fixed-feeling jsa si vědom "being aware."

Agreement with the subject

The transgressive agrees with the subject of the main clause — the person actually performing both actions. This is the single biggest mental hurdle for an English speaker, because English -ing is frozen: "Walking home, the man / the woman / the children saw the fire" uses walking every time. Czech does not.

Same English "carrying," three different Czech forms. The full agreement system — shared with the past transgressive — is laid out side by side on the transgressive agreement page.

How a living speaker says it instead

Because the transgressive is bookish, the practical skill is paraphrasing it back into ordinary modern Czech. There are two standard moves, depending on what the two actions are doing:

• Pure simultaneity → coordinate with a ("and") or use přitom ("while doing so"): Usmívaje se, odešel → Usmíval se a odešel.
• Background / circumstantial "as / while" → a subordinate když-clause: Jda po ulici, potkal kamaráda → Když šel po ulici, potkal kamaráda "While walking down the street, he ran into a friend."

The everyday versions are what a Czech actually says out loud. If your goal is to speak natural Czech, the transgressive is not your tool — the a-clause and the když-clause are.

The frozen survivors you really will meet

A small set of present transgressives have detached from their verbs and live on as fixed adverbial expressions — these are genuinely in current use, including in speech, precisely because nobody parses them as verbs any more. Learn these as vocabulary:

These do not agree and do not feel like verbs to a native speaker — they are simply connectors. The full list of survivors and their behaviour is on the transgressive agreement and usage page.

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• The present transgressive means "while doing X" — a simultaneous, secondary action — and is built only from imperfective verbs.
• It has three forms agreeing with the subject: masc. sg. -e/-a/-je (nesa, vida, dělaje), fem./neut. sg. -íc/-ouc/-jíc (nesouc, prosíc, dělajíc), plural -íce/-ouce/-jíce (nesouce, prosíce, dělajíce).
• It is strongly literary and archaic. Modern speech replaces it with an a-clause (usmíval se a odešel) or a když-clause (když šel).
• Treat it as recognition-only: learn to read it and translate it, not to produce it.
• A few frozen forms (takříkajíc, nehledě na, soudě podle, počínaje) survive as ordinary connectors and are worth learning as vocabulary.