"Toto děvče už napsalo čtyři knihy!"

Translation: This girl has already written four books!

[ErikJRodgers]

Hi guys. So I have to ask if there is any grammatical specificity in Czech between "has written" or "wrote". Also in English, the word order -- "has already written" and "already has written"--- is interchangeable, so both should be accepted.

[kacenka9]

No. Czech has one past tense. That is it. It has other grammatical tools to handle nuances but one simple past tense. Sometimes it is necessary to use Czech present to translate English past. Like "He has been waiting there since 12". He is, poor guy, obviously still waiting and Czech would use present continuous for this situation.

[kowalsky2]

Just to nitpick, your English example is present perfect continuous/progressive, so it's considered present tense in English as well. Probably the only English tense that demands a different basic tense in Czech is present perfect, it almost always becomes past. The other English tenses are just simplified, possibly with some alteration in word usage to achieve the difference in meaning.

Edit: I wrote always, then a few minutes later, in another exercise I've come across the sentence "I've only had that car for eight days". Well, languages are hard. :D

[u9Ju1]

Why is "ta" and "napsala" is not correct? Is "děvče" neutral?

[endless_sleeper]

It is indeed.

[elosium]

So since there is only one past tense, how would one express something along the lines of 'This girl was already writing four books' in Czech? ( e.g. in the context of her already doing that but then starting a fifth one on top of that (still in the past) or something similar).
Would this be done by using psalo instead of napsalo?

[VladaFu]

Tato dívka už psala čtyři knihy.