# Být + verb in past



## questin

Hello. Here comes a grammar question.
Do you have to use always the _být_ when asking or talking about past? For example, do you have to say always _Kdy jste jedli?_ Or can you say just _Kdy jedli?
_If the second one is possible as a question (I see, it may work as subordinate sentence, right?), when could you use it?

The case: I was trying to translate _When did you get sick?_ and saw that you find more results in google for _Kdy onemocněli?_ than for _Kdy jste onemocněli?_.

Thanks a lot!


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## jazyk

You have to use být for all persons, except the third (both singular and plural). If you fail to do so, we can't know who the subject is.

You may find all personal pronouns without být, though (Já dělal, Ty rozuměla), but I have my doubts whether this is standard language. The best, at least for now, is to use být, except in the third person, as I wrote in the first paragraph.


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## questin

Ok, thanks a lot.


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## bibax

_Kdy onemocněli?_ is correct and means _When did *they* get sick?_

*Jsi* is often contracted to *-s* (even in Literary Czech):

Kdys onemocněl? = Kdy jsi onemocněl?

The contraction is obligatory in the case of the reflexive verbs:
Kdy ses vrátil? 
Kdy jsi se vrátil? 

The auxiliary verb can be always omitted in an answer:

- Onemocněl jsi?
- Onemocněl. _(means yes)_


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## jazyk

> The contraction is obligatory in the case of the reflexive verbs:
> Kdy ses vrátil?
> Kdy jsi se vrátil?



It is indeed so in the standard language, but one also encounters the version marked with an X.


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