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Questions & Answers about Včera pršelo celý den.
Why is the verb form pršelo used instead of pršel or pršela?
The verb pršet (“to rain”) is an impersonal verb in Czech. Impersonal verbs (like it rains, it thunders, it gets dark) never agree with a subject in gender or number; they always appear in the neuter singular past-tense form, which ends in -lo. That’s why you say pršelo, not pršel (masculine) or pršela (feminine).
Why isn’t there a subject (like it or the rain) in the sentence?
Czech drops the grammatical subject for impersonal verbs. English forces “it” as a dummy subject (“It rained”), but Czech simply uses the verb alone to express “it was raining.”
What case is celý den, and why is it in that case?
Celý den is in the accusative case because Czech uses the accusative to express the duration of an action. Whenever you talk about doing something “all day,” “all week,” “five hours,” etc., you generally put that time expression in the accusative.
Why isn’t it celého dne (genitive)?
Genitive (celého dne) would normally be used with certain prepositions (e.g. po + genitive) or to mean “during” in some contexts. But when you directly state how long something lasted, you use the accusative (celý den).
What’s the difference between celý den and po celý den?
Both mean “all day,” but po celý den adds the preposition po, making it slightly more formal or emphatic (“throughout the entire day”). In spoken Czech, celý den alone is very common and perfectly natural.
Can I move včera to another position in the sentence?
Yes. Czech has relatively free word order. You can say:
• Pršelo včera celý den.
• Celý den včera pršelo.
• Včera celý den pršelo.
Each word order subtly shifts the emphasis but keeps the same basic meaning.
How do I pronounce Včera pršelo celý den?
A rough pronunciation guide:
• Včera [ˈftʃɛ-ra] (“FCH-e-ra”)
• pršelo [ˈprʃɛ-lo] (“PRSH-e-lo”)
• celý [ˈtsɛ-li] (“TSE-lee”)
• den [dɛn] (“den”)
Put it all together with even stress on each word:
“FTCH-e-ra PRSH-e-lo TSE-li den.”