Posts from January 2009

More Perfective and Imperfective Goodness

Posted by Anna No Comments
Jan 13 2009

Pinolona gave us a list of several verbs that cause her a lot of grief. And I would assume, not only her. They cause me a lot of grief, too.

Up until very recently, I never really paid much attention to Polish verbs. I mean, what was there to pay attention to? You stick a verb in a sentence and hope to make yourself understood, right? All this stuff about perfective and imperfective, aspects, tenses is just a vague cloud in the back of your mind. Or at least, in the back of my mind.

But in all seriousness, this stuff is important if you want to learn a new language. And even if you think you know the language already (like me), you still may not know the inner workings of grammar. Because speaking a language and actually explaining its grammatical rules are two different things.

A few posts back when I talked about imperfective and perfective verbs, Michael suggested that it was much easier and less messy in the long run if you’d learn to think about perfective and imperfective forms of the same verb as two distinct verbs instead of bundling them up in pairs. And he was right. Pairing verbs up can only get you so far. But sooner or later you will run into a bunch of examples where it’s best to keep the aspects apart. And Pinolona provided just the examples we need.

Well, let’s read her comment and then see what we can do about it, OK?

I get mixed up with stawać się, starać się, zostać, zostawać, stawiać. I often confuse ‘to leave’ (as in to leave something behind) and ‘to become’ So stawać się is to become and zostawiać is to leave or drop? What’s the difference between zostać and zostawić and what are their imperfective equivalents (are they perfective??)?

Ouch!
OK, let’s take it from the top. First on the list is our old pal “stawać się.” According to what I know, and I hope what I know is correct, this is an imperfective verb. Why? It occurs in the present tense, as in our favorite example: Staję się coraz głupsza.

What is the perfective equivalent?

  • Stać się, if you are talking about “to become” (stawać with się) and
  • stanąć if you are talking about stawać without się – meaning “to stand up.”

starać się means – to try, to endeavor, to seek, to strive, to do one’s best.
Starać się is also an imperfective verb. You can say – Staram się. – I’m doing my best, I’m trying.

  • Its perfective form is – postarać się.

See, many Polish verbs become perfective through the use of prefixes. “Postarać się” is one of them.

OK, next on the list is “zostać.” That’s a perfective verb. It means – to remain, to stay, to be left over.

  • Its imperfective form is “zostawać.”

For example:
Zostaję tutaj – I’m staying (remaining, not leaving) here.

It can also mean “to become.”
For example: Kiedy skończę szkołę, zostanę nauczycielką. – When I finish school, I’ll become a teacher. (Yeah! In your dreams maybe! Ha!)

And finally, stawiać. It also has several meanings, and some depend on that pesky little “się.”

  • stawiać – to put, to place something somewhere
  • stawiać czoło komuś/czemuś – to defy someone /sth, to face and deal with a person/ problem
  • stawiać na swoim – to have /get your (one’s) way

and many other expressions, I think I will list them in a separate post.

  • stawiać się – to put one’s foot down (as in disagree with someone), or – to appear, to show up (in court for example)

Stawiać is an imperfective verb. You can say:
Zawsze stawiam na swoim. – I always get my way (get what I want).

  • Its perfective form is “postawić.”

And the best for last:
zostawiać – to leave behind, to abandon, to let it be
Zostawiać is imperfective, you can use it in present tense, for example:
Zostawiam to dla ciebie – I’m leaving this for you.

  • Zostawić is its perfective equivalent.

OK, Pino, have I missed anything? :)

Co się tutaj stało? – What happened here?

Posted by Anna No Comments
Jan 10 2009

In the comments to the previous post, Yellerbelly made a very valid point regarding “co się stało?”

He said that he thought it meant “what’s wrong?”

I think it’s a reflection of our collective Polish psyche that something so innocent as “what happened” can imply “what’s wrong?” in our language. Just goes to show you that we, as Poles, always expect the worst.

Let’s take a closer look at “co się stało?”

  • co – what
  • się stało = stało się – happened, 3rd person singular, neuter, past tense

Now imagine this:
Your teenage daughter calls you and with a serious dose of panic in her voice says, “Dad, please don’t be mad…”
Your immediate reaction is “co się stało?” which here can be translated as “what’s wrong?”
“I totaled the car,” your daughter answers.

And this:
Your teenage daughter calls you and says, “Dad, ohmygod, you’re not gonna believe this!”
You ask “co się stało?” and here it simply means “what happened?”
“I got accepted to Stanford!” your daughter squeaks happily while you’re frantically trying to calculate in your head how on earth you’re going to pay for it.

“Stawać się,” as this verb looks in its basic dictionary form, also means “to become.”

For example, when in one of my moments I misspelled the name of the street I live on, and then can’t figure out why the mail is not getting to me, I can say “ostatnio staję się coraz głupsza i głupsza.” – I’m becoming stupider and stupider lately. Duh!

So, when you see this verb used in any other form than 3rd person singular, neuter, past tense, it will most likely mean “to become.”

In that 3rd person singular, neuter, past tense – “stało się” – it will most likely mean “to happen.”

And while we’re on the topic of “stało się,” here’s a handy Polish saying:

  • Co się stało, to się nie odstanie.

Literally, it means something like “what happened/what’s done, can’t be undone.”

So, when your daughter totaled your car and is crying over the phone, after asking her if she’s OK, you think to yourself “co się stało to się nie odstanie, but next time she’s definitely NOT borrowing MY car.”

And speaking of, have you noticed what happened here?
“Zauważyliście co się tutaj stało?”

The blog got a face-lift. Do you like the new design? I love it!

And now we’re also on Twitter!
Polish Blog on Twitter

So between blog posts here, you’ll be able to find me there, twitting away.

Się, Part 1

Posted by Anna No Comments
Jan 8 2009

Are you ready for another installment of Polish grammar? No? Don’t worry, I’m not ready either. We’ll get through it together.

A couple of posts back I started to talk about “się.” That was when I told you how this little word could alter the meaning of a verb. You have a verb without “się” and it means one thing. You stick “się” at the end and it means something else.
I gave “uczyć” (to teach) and “uczyć się” (to learn) as examples.

Here’s another one of such verbs: stawać.

  • stawać – to stand (up) – as in this expression: stawać na głowie (literally – to stand on one’s head) – to bend over backwards or to do one’s darnest

and then you have:

  • stawać się – to become, to happen – as in this expression (past tense): co się stało? – what happened?

By the way, did you notice how in this last example “się” migrated to the FRONT of the verb? “się” is like that, sometimes it can move, and sometimes it even HAS TO move. But that’s something we’ll talk about another day.

Let’s focus on the verbs for now.
OK, we need a verb. How about “myć” – a nice, short word.

  • “myć” means simply “to wash,” but
  • “myć się” – to wash oneself.

You want to see them in action? Sure thing!

  • Myję ręce. – I am washing (my) hands. See? No “się” here.
  • Myję się. – I am washing myself.

At least these two didn’t change in meaning. They’re still both about washing, right?

But apart from those verbs that can exist with or without “się,” there is a whole bunch that occurs almost exclusively with “się.” Here are just a few most popular ones:

  • domagać się – to demand
  • modlić się – to pray
  • domyślać się – to guess, to presume
  • dziać się – to happen
  • wahać się – to hesitate
  • upierać się – to stubbornly insist on something
  • opiekować się – to take care of
  • zgadzać się – to agree
  • zakochać się – to fall in love
  • nudzić się – to be bored
  • martwić się – to worry
  • cieszyć się – to be glad
  • dziwić się – to be surprised
  • denerwować się – to get upset
  • bać się – to be afraid (never occurs without “się”)
  • wstydzić się – to be embarrassed (never occurs without “się”)
  • śmiać się – to laugh

Do you notice anything particular about the verbs in the second group? Yes, many of them describe a state of mental agitation or feelings. Such verbs are almost always followed by “się” and in fact, as you can see, the two that I listed – bać się and wstydzić się do not occur without “się” at all.

To Be Continued…

The Question of Prussia

Posted by Anna 16 Comments
Jan 6 2009

A few weeks ago one of the readers made a comment about Prussia. A family member of hers claimed to have Prussian ancestry, not Polish. Personally, I find this statement a bit odd, but that’s just me, OK?

Prussia, Prusy in Polish (a.k.a. Germany, or one of its many incarnations) was a neighbor of Poland for many, many centuries. Eventually, on August 5, 1772, it added a big chunk of Poland to its own territory.

Remember the Partitions (rozbiory)? Well, that’s when it happened. Russia and Austria got a nice piece each, too.

You see, Prussia was very oddly shaped – there was East Prussia and West Prussia. And between them was a bit of Poland. Of course they didn’t like it, and as soon as they got a chance, they took care of that issue – by adding the Polish territory to their own.


click on the map to make it bigger

Here, on the map you can see how Poland disappeared. The white area bordered by all the blue and the see – that’s East Prussia. The darker blue area to the left of that – that used to be Poland. The slightly less dark blue area under the dark blue area used to be Poland, too. That chunk went to Prussia during the second partition.

So unless someone’s ancestors came from the white bit of East Prussia, or the white area to the left of the blue pieces – West Prussia, I’m not sure just how Prussian they could be otherwise.

If I remember correctly, I also have a bunch of relatives who claimed Prussian ancestry. They spoke German and had goofy German last names. And during communist times they all emigrated to West Germany.

It just goes to show you that Poles come in all different flavors.
Yet for some very odd reason it’s more common for certain Poles from the Prussian part of Poland (after the Partitions) to say they are of Prussian origin than for Poles from the Russian part to admit to Russian origin.

This post is in no way intended to stir controversy. It was simply to show you how Poland ceased to exist. Geographically, that is.

Image: Wikipedia

Teach and Learn

Posted by Anna No Comments
Jan 3 2009

I was talking to my friend today, and as always, she does her best to express herself in Polish. She’s been studying the language for quite some time now, and generally does a very good job when writing in Polish. However, when it comes to speaking, things can get a bit confusing at times.

Today she was explaining to me that she got a new job.

She: “Mam nową pracę.” – I have a new job!
Me: “Świetnie! Gdzie?” – Great! Where?
She: “W szkole średniej.” – In a high school.
She: “Będę uczyć się matematyki.” – I’ll be learning (studying) math.

Huh?

Of course what she meant to say was:

  • Będę uczyć matematyki. – I’ll be teaching math.

However, by adding that pesky reflexive “się” in Polish, the sentence got a totally different meaning.

I explained it to her, and she said it probably came from the fact that she’d been saying “Uczę się polskiego” (I’m learning Polish) for a very long time.

You see, while “się” following a verb tells us it’s a reflexive verb, some of those verbs can and do exist without “się” as well. And some of those verbs without “się” actually mean something else in English than their “się” equivalents.

I hope I didn’t totally confuse you now.

Just take a look:

  • uczyć się – to learn, to study
  • uczyć – to teach

This is a very common mistake even for Poles who learn English. While Polish students confuse “learn” and “teach” their foreign counterparts get stumped by uczyć and uczyć się.

We will talk more about “się” very soon. It’s a very handy word, as you’ll see.

For now, I’ll give you all the “uczyć (się)” verb forms.

Future tense:

  • ja – będę uczyć (się) or będę uczyła (się) / uczył (się) (fem. / masc.)
  • ty – będziesz uczyć (się) or będziesz uczyła (się) / uczył (się) (fem. / masc.)
  • on – będzie uczyć (się) or będzie uczył (się)
  • ona – będzie uczyć (się) or będzie uczyła (się)
  • ono – będzie uczyć (się) or będzie uczyło (się
  • my – będziemy uczyć (się) or będziemy uczyły (się) / uczyli (się) (fem. / masc.)
  • wy – będziecie uczyć (się) or będziecie uczyły (się) / uczyli (się) (fem. / masc.)
  • oni – będą uczyć (się) or będą uczyli (się)
  • one – będą uczyć (się) or będą uczyły (się)

present tense:

  • ja – uczę (się)
  • ty – uczysz (się)
  • on/ona/ono – uczy (się)
  • my – uczymy (się)
  • wy – uczycie (się)
  • oni/one – uczą (się)

past tense:

  • ja – uczyłam (się) / uczyłem (się) (fem. / masc.)
  • ty – uczyłaś (się) / uczyłeś (się) (fem. / masc.)
  • on – uczył (się)
  • ona – uczyła (się)
  • ono – uczyło (się)
  • my – uczyłyśmy (się) / uczyliśmy (się) (fem. / masc.)
  • wy – uczyłyście (się) / uczyliście (się) (fem. / masc.)
  • oni – uczyli (się)
  • one – uczyły (się)

And as you can see, this is an imperfective verb, because it occurs in all three tenses.
Also, it’s more or less regular, and I’m sure by now, if you’ve followed our verb posts, you can spot the pattern of how the regular verbs change according to person (ja, ty, on, etc.) and number (plural and singular) in all the tenses.

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