Aspect
Czech verbs are distinguished by aspect, they are either perfective or imperfective. Perfective verbs indicate the finality of the process. Therefore, they cannot express the present tense.
Perfective verbs are usually formed adding prefixes to imperfective verbs:
- psát (imperf.) - to write, to be writing -> napsat (perf.) - to write down
Some perfective verbs are not formally related to imperfective ones:
- brát (imperf.) - to take, to be taking -> vzít (perf.) - to take
Read more about this topic: Czech Conjugation
Famous quotes containing the word aspect:
“If someone were to prove to me—right this minute—that God, in all his luminousness, exists, it wouldn’t change a single aspect of my behavior.”
—Luis Buñuel (1900–1983)
“Love is like some fresh spring, first a stream and then a river, changing its aspect and its nature as it flows to plunge itself in some boundless ocean, where restricted natures only find monotony, but where great souls are engulfed in endless contemplation.”
—Honoré De Balzac (1799–1850)
“We do not associate the idea of antiquity with the ocean, nor wonder how it looked a thousand years ago, as we do of the land, for it was equally wild and unfathomable always. The Indians have left no traces on its surface, but it is the same to the civilized man and the savage. The aspect of the shore only has changed.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)