Zloděj vzal peněženku.

Because zloděj is in the nominative case, which is the normal case for the subject. Czech often shows grammatical roles through case endings rather than just word order.

So in Zloděj vzal peněženku, zloděj is the one doing the action.

Peněženka is the dictionary form, or nominative singular. In this sentence it is the direct object, so it changes to the accusative singular: peněženku.

This is a common pattern for feminine nouns ending in -a:

• nominative: peněženka
• accusative: peněženku

The infinitive is vzít, meaning to take.
Vzal is the past form, meaning took.

More specifically, vzal is the masculine singular past form, matching zloděj.

In Czech, 3rd-person past tense does not need a separate auxiliary in the way English does. So vzal by itself means he took or the male thief took.

Compare:

• vzal jsem = I took
• vzal jsi = you took
• vzal = he took

So the 3rd person is especially compact.

That -l is part of the Czech past-tense form. Czech past tense is built from a past participle-like form that often ends in -l in the masculine singular.

Examples:

• vzal = he took
• dělal = he did / he was doing
• šel = he went

If the subject were feminine, the form would change:

• zlodějka vzala peněženku = the female thief took the wallet

This is about aspect.

• vzít / vzal is perfective: it presents the action as completed.
• brát / bral is imperfective: it presents the action as ongoing, repeated, or not viewed as a single completed whole.

So Zloděj vzal peněženku means the thief successfully took the wallet as one completed action.

Yes. Czech word order is flexible because the cases help show who is doing what.

The neutral order here is:

• Zloděj vzal peněženku.

But you could also say:

• Peněženku vzal zloděj.

That still means the thief took the wallet, but it changes the emphasis or information focus.

The letter ě usually softens the consonant before it.

So:

• dě sounds roughly like a softened d plus e
• ně sounds roughly like a softened n plus e

For an English speaker, very rough approximations are:

• zloděj ≈ ZLO-dyey
• peněženku ≈ PE-nye-zhen-koo

Those are only approximations, but they help show that ě affects pronunciation.

Yes. Zloděj is a masculine animate noun. That matters because Czech verbs and some noun forms reflect gender and animacy.

In this sentence, it affects the past tense verb:

• zloděj vzal = a male thief took

Compare:

• zlodějka vzala peněženku = a female thief took the wallet
• zloději vzali peněženku = thieves took the wallet

So gender and number are important parts of Czech grammar.