The Czech language has two ways how to express the future. One uses the auxiliary verb to be (budu) in connection with imperfective verbs, while the other solely uses the perfective form of a verb.

Overview

Večer se budu dívat na televizi.

Imperfective Future
imperfective future
the activity will be in progress

Večer se podívám na televizi.

Perfective Future
perfective future
the activity will be completed

Imperfective Future

The imperfective future, also so-called “budu future“, uses the verb BÝT (budu) + the infinitive of the imperfective (present tense) form of the main verb.

JÁ budu sedět MY budeme sedět
TY budeš sedět VY budete sedět
ON/A
TO		 bude sedět ONI budou sedět

This future tense is easy to construct and students are often tempted to use it in all situations, however, this is not the right approach. The imperfective future should be used only for:

  • future unfinished activities in progress
  • activities which will repeatedly happen in the future.

Zítra budeme zpívat písničky.

it will take some time before it is finished

Budeš psát babičce každý den?

it will take place regularly

Perfective Future

As the name suggests, this future tense uses the perfective form of the verb. This tense is used for:

  • completed activities and actions
  • giving plain information and facts where the progress is not important
  • one-off, not repeated activities

Zítra si zazpíváme písničky.

fact – the act of singing is not important

Napíšu babičce ve čtvrtek.

one-off – it will take place only once

Some verbs do not exist in the perfective future. These are called Imperfective Tantum and some examples include spát, pracovat, cestovat and studovat.

The only possible future at such verbs is: budu pracovat, budu cestovat…

Present Tense for the Future

Please note that in spoken language, the present tense is often used to indicate the future (like in English “I am flying to Greece tomorrow.“).

Zítra letím do Řecka.

Co děláš v sobotu večer?