Why do Czech speakers say “We test it since Monday.”?

Czech expresses continuing action with the present tense plus a time phrase. English needs the present perfect continuous, and the present tense reads as a status that has not started. The version that lands is “We’ve been testing it since Monday.”. It is interference from Czech rather than a gap in your English, which is why it survives years of fluency.

Do these Czech patterns matter if everyone understands me anyway?

Being understood and sounding authoritative are different bars, and in a client meeting you are held to the second one. None of the 5 patterns on this page stop you being understood — that is precisely why nobody corrects them, and why they are still there after ten years.

How do I find out which Czech habits I actually have?

Paste a transcript from a real meeting and say which speaker is you. Every finding quotes your own sentence back with the version a native speaker would have used, across 5 categories of Czech interference, and the ones that keep recurring build into a profile so you can see the habit rather than a one-off.

English mistakes Czech speakers make in meetings

Czech has no articles and a freer word order than English, and its speakers are usually fluent enough that the remaining patterns are the only thing standing between them and sounding native. That makes them worth naming precisely.

Articles missing or over-corrected

I sent you email about the deployment yesterday.

I sent you an email about the deployment yesterday.

Czech has no articles at all, so they are learned rather than felt. The usual result is not uniform omission but inconsistency — correct in one clause and absent in the next.

Present tense for something still running

We test it since Monday.

We’ve been testing it since Monday.

Czech expresses continuing action with the present tense plus a time phrase. English needs the present perfect continuous, and the present tense reads as a status that has not started.

“On the meeting” for “in the meeting”

We agreed it on the meeting last week.

We agreed it in the meeting last week.

The Czech preposition maps to “on”, and it survives the translation. It is a small word in a sentence about a commitment, which is where small words get noticed.

Emphasis carried by position

This problem we solved already last sprint.

We already solved this problem last sprint.

Czech moves words to mark emphasis because its case endings keep the meaning clear. English marks emphasis with stress and keeps the order fixed, so the moved version sounds like a translation.

Directness read as dismissal

No, that is not correct.

I don’t think that’s right — here’s what I’m seeing.

Czech professional register treats plain contradiction as normal and efficient. UK and US clients often read the same sentence as a rebuke, and the fix is one clause of framing rather than hedging.

Questions Czech speakers ask

What is the most common English mistake Czech speakers make in meetings?: The one that shows up most — Articles missing or over-corrected. It comes out as “I sent you email about the deployment yesterday.” where a fluent colleague would say “I sent you an email about the deployment yesterday.”. Czech has no articles at all, so they are learned rather than felt. The usual result is not uniform omission but inconsistency — correct in one clause and absent in the next.
Why do Czech speakers say “We test it since Monday.”?: Czech expresses continuing action with the present tense plus a time phrase. English needs the present perfect continuous, and the present tense reads as a status that has not started. The version that lands is “We’ve been testing it since Monday.”. It is interference from Czech rather than a gap in your English, which is why it survives years of fluency.
Do these Czech patterns matter if everyone understands me anyway?: Being understood and sounding authoritative are different bars, and in a client meeting you are held to the second one. None of the 5 patterns on this page stop you being understood — that is precisely why nobody corrects them, and why they are still there after ten years.
How do I find out which Czech habits I actually have?: Paste a transcript from a real meeting and say which speaker is you. Every finding quotes your own sentence back with the version a native speaker would have used, across 5 categories of Czech interference, and the ones that keep recurring build into a profile so you can see the habit rather than a one-off.

Which of these do you actually do?

Reading a list is not the same as knowing which habit is yours. Paste a transcript from a real meeting and find out.

Check a real meeting

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