By now you have met the five Czech conjugation classes one at a time. This page puts all five in a single room so you can see what they share and where they part ways. The payoff is a realization that changes how you study verbs: once you know which class a verb belongs to, its endings are completely regular. The entire difficulty of the Czech present tense is not the endings — it is figuring out the class. Get that, and the rest is mechanical.
The five classes, all six persons, side by side
Each class is named after the vowel that shows up in the third-person singular: -á-, -í-, -je-, -e-, -ne-. Here is one representative verb from each, run through the whole present tense.
| Person | dělat (V, -á-) to do | prosit (IV, -í-) to ask, beg | kupovat (III, -je-) to buy | nést (I, -e-) to carry | tisknout (II, -ne-) to press, print |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| já (1sg) | dělám | prosím | kupuju | nesu | tisknu |
| ty (2sg) | děláš | prosíš | kupuješ | neseš | tiskneš |
| on/ona/ono (3sg) | dělá | prosí | kupuje | nese | tiskne |
| my (1pl) | děláme | prosíme | kupujeme | neseme | tiskneme |
| vy (2pl) | děláte | prosíte | kupujete | nesete | tisknete |
| oni/ony (3pl) | dělají | prosí | kupují | nesou | tisknou |
Stare at the columns and three facts pop out.
What every class shares
Look at the middle three rows — 2sg, 1pl, 2pl. The endings are identical in all five classes:
- 2sg = -š: děláš, prosíš, kupuješ, neseš, tiskneš
- 1pl = -me: děláme, prosíme, kupujeme, neseme, tiskneme
- 2pl = -te: děláte, prosíte, kupujete, nesete, tisknete
That is a third of the paradigm you get for free, the moment you know any verb at all. Whatever the class, you (singular) ends in -š, we ends in -me, you (plural/polite) ends in -te. There is nothing to memorize per class here.
Where the classes differ
Three slots carry all the variation.
1sg splits into two camps. The -á- and -í- classes take -m (dělám, prosím). The -je-, -e- and -ne- classes take -u (kupuju, nesu, tisknu). In careful or literary register, the -je- class also offers an older -i (kupuji), but in speech -u dominates.
3sg is simply the class vowel with nothing added: dělá, prosí, kupuje, nese, tiskne. This is why the classes are named after it — the third-person singular is the class's signature.
3pl is the messiest slot: -ají for the -á- class (dělají), -í for the -í- class (prosí), and -ou for the -e- and -ne- classes (nesou, tisknou). The -je- class is split by register — literary -í (kupují) versus everyday -ou (kupujou).
Co děláš o víkendu? Já obvykle nic nedělám.
What are you doing this weekend? I usually don't do anything. (class V: děláš, dělám)
Prosím tě, pomoz mi to přestěhovat.
Please help me move this. (class IV: prosím)
Kupuju chleba skoro každý den.
I buy bread almost every day. (class III: kupuju, colloquial 1sg)
The same person across all five classes
To feel the parallelism, take a single person and watch it walk across the classes. Here is the first-person singular — the I-form — of each:
Dělám si kávu, dáš si taky?
I'm making myself a coffee, do you want one too? (dělám — class V)
Prosím o trochu trpělivosti.
I ask for a little patience. (prosím — class IV)
Kupuju nám lístky do kina, jdeš taky?
I'm buying us cinema tickets, are you coming too? (kupuju — class III)
Nesu ti dárek, tak zavři oči.
I'm bringing you a present, so close your eyes. (nesu — class I)
Tisknu si letenku, ať ji mám i na papíře.
I'm printing my plane ticket so I have it on paper too. (tisknu — class II)
Five different shapes — dělám, prosím, kupuju, nesu, tisknu — but the same meaning slot, I. Each one is regular for its class. The only thing you had to know in advance was which class each verb belongs to.
The real difficulty: identifying the class
So here is the honest part. The endings are regular, but the infinitive does not reliably tell you the class, and that is the genuine work of learning Czech verbs.
Some infinitive shapes are a safe bet:
- -ovat → almost always class III (-je-): kupovat → kupuju, pracovat → pracuju, opakovat → opakuju.
- -nout → almost always class II (-ne-): tisknout → tisknu, minout → minu, zapomenout → zapomenu.
But others are genuinely ambiguous. The ending -at can land in at least two classes:
- dělat is class V (-á-): dělám.
- psát is class I (-e-) with a stem change: píšu.
- brát is class I (-e-) with a different stem: beru.
You cannot tell dělám from píšu by looking at the infinitives dělat and psát — they rhyme but conjugate in different classes. This is not laziness on the language's part; it is the residue of older sound changes, and there is no shortcut that always works.
Píšu mámě každý týden, ale tenhle týden jsem nestihl napsat.
I write to my mum every week, but this week I didn't manage to. (psát → píšu, class I despite -at)
The practical fix is a study habit:
How to use the class pages
Each class has its own detailed page with the stem rules, the consonant alternations, and the irregular members:
- Class V (-á-), the dělat type — see class V.
- Class IV (-í-), the prosit / trpět / sázet types — see class IV.
- Class III (-je-), the krýt / kupovat types — see class III.
- Class I (-e-), the nést / brát types — see class I.
- Class II (-ne-), the tisknout / minout types — see class II.
Pracujeme spolu už pět let a nikdy jsme se nepohádali.
We've worked together for five years and never once quarrelled. (pracovat → pracujeme, class III)
Common Mistakes
❌ Já dělaju doma.
Incorrect — dělat is class V (-á-), so the 1sg is dělám with -m, not the -u of class III.
✅ Já dělám doma.
I work from home.
❌ On kupuju mléko.
Incorrect — kupuju is the já-form; the 3sg of a class III verb is kupuje.
✅ On kupuje mléko.
He's buying milk.
❌ Oni nesají kufry.
Incorrect — class I forms the 3pl in -ou, not -ají; that is nesou.
✅ Oni nesou kufry.
They're carrying the suitcases.
❌ My prosíme... vy proste?
Incorrect — the 2pl ending is -te on the class vowel: prosíte, not proste (which is the imperative).
✅ Vy prosíte o nemožné.
You're asking for the impossible. (2pl present)
❌ Píšám dopis.
Incorrect — psát is class I despite its -at infinitive; the 1sg is píšu, not the class-V píšám.
✅ Píšu dopis.
I'm writing a letter.
Key Takeaways
- The five classes share 2sg -š, 1pl -me, 2pl -te — those endings are identical everywhere.
- They differ only in 1sg (-m vs -u/-i), 3sg (the bare class vowel), and 3pl (-ají / -í / -ou).
- Endings are fully regular once the class is known; the hard part is identifying the class.
- The infinitive is an unreliable guide (dělat → dělám but psát → píšu), so memorize the 1sg + 3sg of every verb.
Now practice Czech
Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.
Start learning Czech→Related Topics
- Class V: -á- Verbs (dělat)A1 — The largest and most regular present class, ending in -á-.
- Class IV: -í- Verbs (prosit, trpět, sázet)A2 — The -í- present class, where three different infinitive endings all feed one tidy paradigm.
- Class I: -e- Verbs (nést, brát)A2 — The -e- conjugation, where the present stem can look nothing like the infinitive and has to be memorised verb by verb.
- Class II: -ne- Verbs (tisknout, minout)A2 — The -ne- conjugation, built mostly from -nout infinitives — predictable in the present, but full of perfectives whose 'present' actually means the future.
- Class III: -je- Verbs (krýt, kupovat)A2 — The -je- present class — including the enormous, fully productive -ovat group where nearly every borrowed and newly coined Czech verb ends up.