# What have you been doing?



## lau23

Hello everybody, I'd like to know how to say in Czech "What have you been doing?
Thanks in advance.


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## Enquiring Mind

Hello lau23, it may not be possible to answer this standalone question satisfactorily without more context. Are you addressing the question to someone with whom you use the familiar verb forms (as in Spanish)?

Czech doesn't have a perfect tense or progressive forms, so in effect we will be asking "what are you doing?" but in order to throw it back to the past "what have you been doing", there has to be some kind of (stated, implied, or understood by the people involved) time reference in the context in which the question is asked.

As an almost meaningless kind of greeting, you can say (to someone with whom you're on familiar terms) "Co děláš?", and that could mean "What are you doing (now)?", "What are you up to (these days)?", "What have you been doing (recently)?"


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## Enquiring Mind

The poster hasn't come back with a context, so in order to make this thread more useful to learners of Czech and therefore to the forum, I thought I'd [= I would] provide some examples of how the present perfect continuous (or present perfect progressive) "have been ~ing" construction is usually rendered in Czech. The most common way is to use the present tense plus an adverbial time phrase, such as "poslední dobou" (= recently, of late). 

Poslední dobou nepeču, nevařím a v kuchyni zásadně neexperimentuju! (source: lucieliving.blogspot.cz)
I haven't been doing any baking or cooking, and definitely not anything experimental in the kitchen recently!

Vůbec si poslední dobou nerozumim s mamkou .. (source: czporadna.cz)
I haven't been getting on at all (well) with my mum recently ...

Poslední dobou se odvíjí taková poněkud zvláštní politická debata o tom, že ... (source: svobodnenoviny.eu)
A rather strange political debate has been developing recently about ..

Poslední dobou dělám dost velké změny ve svém životě ...(source: fruktarian.cz)
I've been making quite significant changes to my life recently ....

Co dělám poslední dobou? Výletuju! (source:  minimalist-lady.blogspot.cz)
What have I been doing recently? I've been getting out and about!

Poslední dobou nějak nestíhám. (source: moje-knihovna.pise.cz)
I always seem to have been running late recently. ("I always seem to be running late recently" or a number of other versions are ok here too)

Musím uznat, že poslední dobou hodně přemýšlím nad tím, .... (source: granosalis.cz)
I must admit I've been doing a lot of thinking recently about ...  ("I've been thinking a lot recently..." is also ok)

Pane doktore, poslední dobou se cítím dost špatně. (source: pqyokpn.vtipkar.cz)
I haven't been feeling too well recently, doctor.

Ahoj, co děláš poslední dobou? (source: ask.fm) Hi there, what have you been doing recently?


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## Nora Zothova

lau23 said:


> Hello everybody, I'd like to know how to say in Czech "What have you been doing?
> Thanks in advance.


Hello lau23, In case you do come back for that answer, my intuitive take on this would be something like: "jak se ti vede," (which may be back translated also simply as: "how are you?") If the speaker's intention was to express personal concern, I think that might be appropriate.


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