Posts tagged with "present tense"

Czytać – To read or not to read?

Posted by Katarzyna 4 Comments
Jun 28 2010

Czytać translated is Polish for to read. I had a long conversation with one of my family members, and they pointed out how this word was simple, yet a very effective learning tool when learning the Polish language. In fact, you can use this to conjugate many verbs ending in -ać. Now I did say many, NOT ALL. As with every rule, there are exceptions. However, this one gives you a great basis, because there are several verbs that have the  -ać ending.

This is an imperfective aspect verb, meaning that the action is one that is continuous or incomplete and has no known end. It can be conjugated in past, present and future tenses. So we’ll start with the present tense. Let’s conjugate the verb czytać:

Singular, 1st person   czytam (I am reading)
Singular, 2nd person   czytasz (You are reading)
Singular, 3rd person   czyta (He/she/it is reading)

Plural, 1st person   czytamy (We are reading)
Plural, 2nd person   czytacie (You are reading)
Plural, 3rd person   czytają (They are reading)

Now for the past tense, things get a little interesting. When the verb is conjugated, the ending is based on the gender of the noun that is performing the action.

Singular, 1st person male   czytałem (I read)
Singular, 1st person female czytałam (I read)
Singular, 2nd person male    czytałeś (You read)
Singular, 2nd person female    czytałaś (You read)
Singular, 3rd person male   czytał (He read)
Singular, 3nd person female   czytała (She read)
Singular, 3nd person neuter   czytało (It read)

Plural, 1st person male   czytaliśmy (We read)
Plural, 1st person female, neuter or non-personal   czytałyśmy (We read)
Plural, 2nd person male   czytaliście (You read)
Plural, 2nd personal female, neuter or non-personal   czytałyście (You read)
Plural, 2nd personal male   czytali (They read)
Plural, 2nd personal female, neuter or non-personal   czytały (They read)

And last but not least, we’ll go over the future tense of the verb:

Singular, 1st person male   będę czytał (I will read)
Singular, 1st person female będę czytała (I will read)
Singular, 2nd person male    będziesz czytał (You will read)
Singular, 2nd person female    będziesz czytała (You will read)
Singular, 3rd person male   będzie czytał (He will read)
Singular, 3nd person female   będzie czytała (She will read)
Singular, 3nd person neuter   będzie czytało (It will read)

Plural, 1st person male   będziemy czytali (We will read)
Plural, 1st person female, neuter or non-personal   będziemy czytały (We will read)
Plural, 2nd person male   będziecie czytali (You will read)
Plural, 2nd personal female, neuter or non-personal   będziecie czytały (You will read)
Plural, 2nd personal male   będą czytali (They will read)
Plural, 2nd personal female, neuter or non-personal   będą czytały (They will read)

* Side note, the future tense can also be będę czytać, będziesz czytać, będzie czytać, etc. Essentially, this is the conjugated form of być (to be) plus the infinitive czytać.

There it is; to read conjugated in the past, present and future tenses. When I started learning to read and write, it helped me to take the Polish conjugation and write them over and over. Maybe flash cards will work for you. Whatever method works for you, this is a great verb to start with and to learn the endings. I mentioned early on that there were several verbs that were conjugated like this one. A few more to get started with are:

kochać (to love)
witać (to greet)
śpiewać (to sing)
znać (to know)
pamiętać (to remember)
odwiedzać (to visit someone)
zwiedzać (to visit a place)

Lastly, I mentioned there were some that looked like they may be conjugated like this verb but are not. So as not to confuse the issue, I won’t get into them, however, a couple examples to look out for are the verbs spać (to sleep) and stać (to stand). We’ll go over these in another lesson. And speaking of which, please let us know what you do to help yourself learn Polish verb conjugations. Your little trick may help someone else out there struggling.

Do następnego czytania…

Singular, 1st person male   będę czytał (I will read)
Singular, 1st person female będę czytała (I will read)
Singular, 2nd person male    będziesz czytał (You will read)
Singular, 2nd person female    będziesz czytała (You will read)
Singular, 3rd person male   będzie czytał (He will read)
Singular, 3nd person female   będzie czytała (She will read)
Singular, 3nd person neuter   będzie czytało (It will read)

Plural, 1st person male   będziemy czytali (We will read)
Plural, 1st person female, neuter or non-personal   będziemy czytały (We will read)
Plural, 2nd person male   będziecie czytali (You will read)
Plural, 2nd personal female, neuter or non-personal   będziecie czytały (You will read)
Plural, 2nd personal male   będą czytali (They will read)
Plural, 2nd personal female, neuter or non-personal   będą czytały (They will read)

Polish Present Tense

Posted by Anna No Comments
Apr 21 2009

Of course, since last time I bravely announced that the next post would be about grammar, I put on my procrastinator’s hat and have been doing everything possible to put it off for as long as possible. But then today my friend said “you’re stupid, the sooner you explain this grammar stuff, the sooner you can devote your time to more interesting things – like visiting me, for example.” And then she went on and actually did the grammar explaining as well:

“It’s really simple, OK? In English they have this whole bunch of useless tenses, the one with ‘do you blah blah’ and the one with ‘ing something something’ and then the one with ‘been ing whatever, anyway you know it and besides who cares? All your people really need to know that in Polish all this nonsense turns into one normal present tense, just how gods intended it to be in the first place. End of grammar lesson, now, when do you come visit me? I kup jakieś ciasto po drodze, OK? (and buy some cake on your way)”

(Now, if all Polish teachers could be like that! Wow!)

Unfortunately, I’m sure that now “my people” are staring at their computer screens and thinking “come again? ing blah something whatever? huh?”

So, let’s go over it again. And this time let’s use a handy example. How about the one from the previous post, the one about “Ja uczę się polskiego”?

In English you can say the following things:

  • I study Polish.
  • I’m studying Polish.

and

  • I’ve been studying Polish.

And yes, “uczyć się” can be translated into English as both “to learn” and “to study” and don’t listen to Poles telling you otherwise.
In Polish the verb “studiować” (to study) is used almost exclusively when referring to higher education, as in “I studied psychology at Harvard.” – Studiowałam psychologię na Harvardzie. (no, not really, I’m not that ambitious.)


But a sentence such as: “I’ve been studying Polish for two years” can be translated into Polish as “Uczę się (języka) polskiego od dwóch lat.” So for today, we’ll stick with “to study – uczyć się”, OK?

And see what happened above?

The “been ing whatever” (I’ve been studying Polish by myself) became simply “Uczę się polskiego od dwóch lat” in Polish.

By the way, here’s a little something worth remembering. In English we say “for two years” while the Polish equivalent is “od dwóch lat”, which when translated back to English means “since two years.” Which explains why plenty of Poles say it like that when speaking English.

And how about “I study Polish when I have time.”?
Uczę się polskiego kiedy mam czas.

See, again just a regular present tense in Polish. Nothing fancy.

So how about “I’m studying Polish, be quiet.”?
Uczę się polskiego, bądź cicho.


And again the “ing something something” became the same old boring present tense in Polish.

And voila! My friend was absolutely correct. And it only took her 15 seconds to explain this issue. Man, I have a lot to learn… Now, what kind of cake should I buy? I’m thinking “drożdżowka” (yeast cake).

Verbs of Motion

Posted by Anna 10 Comments
Oct 16 2008

Polish verbs make me cry. And I don’t mean the tears of joy here, that’s for sure.

I’ve never thought about just how evil they can be until recently. I was working on a project, which demanded expert knowledge of verbs, Polish verbs, naturally, and that was a real eye-opener for me. I’ve never realized just how many problems they can cause for a sloppy Polish speaker, even a native one. And if a native gets confused, then what about those who are learning Polish?

To get some help, I’ve been plodding through “Polish Grammar in a Nutshell” by Oscar E. Swan, and needless to say, like most grammar books in the known universe, it also fails miserably when it comes to explaining the finer points of Polish verbs. (And I also think that it switched perfective and imperfective forms of “to buy,” so be careful.)

And it all started when someone very near and dear to me wanted to know the difference between “iść” and “chodzić.” Well, he also asked about “pójść” but we’ll leave that one for now.

Frankly, I have never thought about this phenomenon, but these two verbs of motions seem indicative of what happens to Polish verbs in general.

Both “iść” and “chodzić” mean “to go.” They’re both imperfective verbs. The difference is in how they’re used.

Let’s start with “iść”:

Meaning, going right now, I’m all dressed up, have my high-heels on, my make-up and hair are done, and I’m going.

And now with “chodzić”:

  • Tak, chodzę na randki. – Yeah, I go on dates. Says your teenager daughter to you while you watch her with a horrified expression. Like every weekend, for example, I go on dates.

See what happened? One verb is used to express an immediate action, and the other – a habitual thing that is done more or less regularly, but not right now.
There are tons of verbs like that in Polish, and sadly, you need to know both forms to make sense of what people are saying to you.

Let’s take another motion verb “to run” – “biec” and “biegać.”
Yep, you guessed it, the first one means “to run right now”, and the other one “to run.”

  • Biegnę na przystanek. – I am running to the bus stop (you may yell into your cell phone to a friend who’s waiting there for you.)
  • Biegam 5km każdego rana. – I run 5 kms every morning. (To which my answer is: good for you. You go run, and I’ll sleep.)

I think I should ease you into the world of verbs slowly, so we will stop here for now.

Below you have the present tense forms of “iść” and “chodzić” and “biec” and “biegać.”

  • ja – idę / chodzę
  • ty – idziesz /chodzisz
  • on/ona/ono – idzie / chodzi
  • my – idziemy /chodzimy
  • wy – idziecie / chodzicie
  • oni – idą / chodzą
  • ja – biegnę / biegam
  • ty – biegniesz / biegasz
  • on/ona/ono – biegnie / biega
  • my – biegniemy / biegamy
  • wy – biegniecie / biegacie
  • oni – biegną / biegają
Back to the Top