Stretávam

Stretávam is the first-person singular present tense form of the Slovak imperfective verb stretávať, meaning to meet or to encounter, typically in a habitual or repeated sense. The imperfective aspect indicates ongoing, repeated, or non-specific meetings, as opposed to a single completed meeting expressed by a perfective form such as stretnúť. In standard Slovak, the present tense conjugation is ja stretávam, ty stretávaš, on stretáva, my stretávame, vy stretávate, oni/stretávajú.

Usage and nuance: Stretávam is commonly used to describe regular or habitual meetings rather than a one-time event. It can take a direct object when naming the person or people met, for example: Stretávam kamarátov po práci. It is also used reflexively with sa to indicate meeting with others, as in: Stretávam sa s kamarátmi každý piatok.

Relation to other forms: The imperfective form contrasts with the perfective counterpart stretnúť, which denotes a single, completed meeting. In present contexts that refer to a future-like or completed action, Slovak would typically use the perfective form in the corresponding tense (for example, Stretnem ťa zajtra).

Pronunciation and orthography: The form is written with diacritics in standard Slovak: stretávam. In non-accented ASCII representations, it may appear as stretavam.

See also: stretávať sa (to meet with someone, to meet each other), stretnúť (to meet, to encounter; perfective), stretávanie (the act of meeting).

Stretávam thus functions as a common, neutral way to describe habitual or recurring meetings in Slovak, reflecting the language’s aspectual distinction between imperfective and perfective verb forms.