Breakdown of Moje babička chce žít doma ve vesnici a nechce žít ve velkém městě.
Questions & Answers about Moje babička chce žít doma ve vesnici a nechce žít ve velkém městě.
Both moje and má mean my for feminine nouns like babička.
- moje babička – neutral, very common in everyday modern Czech
- má babička – a bit more formal, poetic, or old‑fashioned in many contexts
Both are grammatically correct. You will hear moje more often in normal speech.
Babička is in the nominative singular, because it is the subject of the sentence (the one who wants / doesn’t want something).
- Dictionary form: babička (grandmother) – feminine noun
- Nominative singular ending for many feminine nouns is -a:
- babička (grandmother), sestra (sister), maminka (mom)
So the base form and the subject form look the same: babička.
chce is 3rd person singular present tense of the verb chtít (to want).
- on / ona / ono chce = he / she / it wants
When you use chtít with an action, that action is in the infinitive:
- chce žít – (she) wants to live
- chce pracovat – (she) wants to work
- chce bydlet – (she) wants to live (reside)
So žít is the infinitive to live, following chce.
Both žít and bydlet can be translated as to live, but they are used differently:
žít – to live in the general sense (to be alive / to live one’s life somewhere)
- Chci žít zdravě. – I want to live healthily.
- Chtějí žít v Česku. – They want to live in the Czech Republic.
bydlet – to live somewhere, to reside (more about housing / address)
- Bydlím v Praze. – I live in Prague (I reside there).
- Babička bydlí na venkově. – Grandma lives in the countryside.
In your sentence, chce žít doma ve vesnici suggests more the idea of living her life at home in the village, not just her registered address.
You could say chce bydlet doma ve vesnici, and it would usually be understood as focusing more on her place of residence. In everyday speech, people might use both, but žít here sounds very natural.
doma means at home (as an adverb, not a noun):
- Jsem doma. – I am at home.
- Chce žít doma. – She wants to live at home.
v domě literally means in the house (locative of dům, house):
- Je v domě. – She is in the house.
So:
- doma – more general feeling/place of home
- v domě – physically inside a particular house building
In this sentence, doma emphasizes being at her home, not just being inside a building.
Czech has two forms of the preposition v: v and ve.
ve is used before some words for euphonic reasons, to make pronunciation easier, especially before words beginning with v-, f- or certain consonant clusters:
- ve vesnici (not v vesnici)
- ve Vídni (in Vienna)
- ve Francii (in France)
So ve vesnici is simply the natural, pronounceable form of v + vesnice.
The preposition v / ve with the meaning in usually takes the locative case.
- Dictionary form: vesnice (village) – feminine
- Locative singular: (o) vesnici – used after v/ve, o, po (when they require locative).
So:
- ve vesnici – in the village (locative singular)
- ve škole – in the school
- v kanceláři – in the office
The change from vesnice → vesnici is due to declension into the locative.
Both exist, but they have different usage patterns:
- ve vesnici – literally in the village (more neutral / formal, spatial)
- na vesnici – very common in everyday speech, roughly in the village / in the countryside
Czechs very often say:
- Bydlí na vesnici. – She lives in a village / in the countryside.
So possible variants for this part:
- žít doma ve vesnici – perfectly correct, slightly more literal
- žít doma na vesnici – very natural, everyday speech
Your sentence with ve vesnici is correct and clear; na vesnici would sound even more colloquial and typical.
město (city / town) is a neuter noun. After v / ve (in) with location, neuter singular uses the locative case.
- Dictionary: město – neuter
- Locative sg.: (o) městě – used after v/ve when meaning in the city.
The adjective velký (big) must agree with the noun in gender, number, and case:
- Nominative neuter sg.: velké město – a big city
- Locative neuter sg.: ve velkém městě – in a big city
So:
- velkém – adjective, neuter, singular, locative
- městě – noun, neuter, singular, locative
They match in all three: gender, number, case.
In Czech, the basic way to negate a verb is to attach ne- directly to the verb with no space:
- chce – (she) wants
- nechce – (she) does not want
- má – (she) has
- nemá – (she) doesn’t have
- rozumím – I understand
- nerozumím – I don’t understand
So nechce žít = does not want to live. Writing ne chce would be incorrect.
Yes, Czech very often omits subject pronouns (and sometimes even the noun subject) when it is clear from context who is being talked about.
If everyone already knows you are talking about your grandmother, you could say:
- Chce žít doma ve vesnici a nechce žít ve velkém městě.
That would naturally be understood as She wants to live at home in the village and doesn’t want to live in a big city.
Including Moje babička just makes it explicit and clear when introducing or emphasizing the subject.
Czech word order is more flexible than English, but the version in your sentence is the most neutral:
- Moje babička chce žít doma ve vesnici… – neutral, natural
Other possibilities:
- Moje babička chce doma žít ve vesnici.
- Doma ve vesnici chce moje babička žít.
These are grammatically correct but start to sound marked or stylistically special (focusing on doma ve vesnici, for example).
For normal, everyday speech, keep:
Moje babička chce žít doma ve vesnici a nechce žít ve velkém městě.
In Czech, the present tense of an imperfective verb (like žít) can refer to:
- present time
- future intention or plan (especially with chtít + infinitive)
In this sentence:
- Moje babička chce žít doma… – My grandmother wants to live at home…
It mainly expresses an ongoing attitude / wish, typically about the future: she does not want to move to a big city; she wants to (continue to) live at home in the village.
So it’s grammatically present tense, but in meaning it’s about what she wants regarding her future living situation.