Introduction to verbs and conjugation

Perfective vs Imperfective

Each Polish verb is either perfective or imperfective. Basically, perfective verbs imply completion, while imperfective verbs imply an ongoing action with no sense of completion.

Perfective verbs are sometimes created by adding a prefix (do-, na-, od-, po-, prze-, przy-, s-, u-, w-, wy-, z-, za-) to an imperfective verb, but not always - the prefix might also change the meaning slightly (e.g., "pisać" means "to write" and "napisać" - "to have written", but "przepisać" means "to rewrite" or "to copy the writing").

Example: czytać

The verb czytać has a very typical conjugation. Many (but not all) verbs ending in -ać conjugate in this way.

czytać, meaning "to read", is an imperfective verb. For now, we only look at the present tense:

Subject	Pronoun (optional)	Conjugated verb	Translation
1st person	ja	czytam	I am reading / I read
2nd person	ty	czytasz	You (singular) are reading / You read
3rd person	on / ona / ono	czyta	He/she/it is reading / He/she/it reads
1st person, plural	my	czytamy	We are reading / We read
2nd person, plural	wy	czytacie	You (plural) are reading / You read
3rd person, plural	oni / one	czytają	They are reading / They read

In modern Polish, there is no grammatical difference between "W tej chwili czytam książkę." - I am reading a book right now - and "Codziennie czytam gazetę." - I read (the) paper every day.

Exercises

Przeczytać means "to have read". Polish does have an equivalent of the present perfect, but it may seem a bit unclear to an English speaker. Don't worry, there is a hidden logic to it. Remember that perfective verbs imply completion, so Przeczytam książkę means "I will read the book (and finish)." In other words, "I will have read the entire book (in the future)."

Note that, like in Spanish and Italian, subject pronouns (ja, ty, on, my, wy, oni) are usually omitted because they are redundant.

Let's try conjugating this verb (Click "▼" to check your answer):

I will have read (the entire book)

Przeczytam

To one person: You will have read (the entire book)

Przeczytasz

She/he will have read (the entire book)

Przeczyta

We will have read (the entire book)

Przeczytamy

To a group of people: You will have read (the entire book)

Przeczytacie

They will have read (the entire book)

Przeczytają

kupować

Other ować verbs will follow this pattern.

kupować (to buy) is an imperfective verb.

This is how you conjugate it:

Subject	Pronoun	Conjugated verb	Translation
1st person	Ja	kupuję	I am buying / I buy
2nd person	Ty	kupujesz	You (singular) are buying / You buy
3rd person	On / Ona / Ono	kupuje	He/she/it is buying / He/she/it buys
1st person, plural	My	kupujemy	We are buying / We buy
2nd person, plural	Wy	kupujecie	You (plural) are buying / You buy
3rd person, plural	Oni / One	kupują	They are buying / They buy

As you can see, it's quite regular.

Exercises

Let's try conjugating a verb of the same type. However, our chosen verb narysować (to have drawn a picture) happens to be a perfective verb. Therefore, when you conjugate it, you get the future tense.

Ok, let's start conjugating.

I will have drawn

Ja narysuję

To one person: You will have drawn

Narysujesz

He will have drawn

On narysuje

We will have drawn

Narysujemy

To a group of people: You will have drawn

Narysujecie

They will have drawn

Narysują

Introduction to declension

Polish has seven cases. Here's the basic idea - you should be familiar with it if you studied Latin at school:

The nominative case (lat. nominativus, pl. mianownik) - this is the "basic" form of a noun you'll find in the dictionary. In a sentence it serves as the subject:
The man went to the store.

The genitive case (lat. genetivus, pl. dopełniacz) - this is the possessive case (in English you just add 's. Believe me or not, the 's is the vestige of more complicated declension English used to have). Besides, the genitive is used for the direct object in negative sentences:
A country's citizens must defend its honour.

I did not buy the car.

The dative case (lat. dativus, pl. celownik) indicates the indirect object of a verb (To whom? or For whom?):
We told her the truth.

The man gave his daughter a book.

I made them dinner.

The accusative case (lat. accusativus, pl. biernik) - in sentences, noun in accusative is the direct object of an action:
I bought the car.

The instrumental case (lat. instrumentalis, pl. narzędnik) tells us with which? or how? an action is performed:
He shot it with the gun.

The locative case (in Latin this case merged with ablativus, pl. miejscownik) indicates a location of something/someone:
I live in China.

The vocative case (lat. vocativus, pl. wołacz) is for directly addressing a person:
Professor, are you O.K.?

Exercises

Which case should we use for the word or words in red?

He lured the animal with bait.

nominative

He lured the animal with bait.

accusative

He lured the animal with bait.

instrumental

We told her the whole story.

dative

We told her the whole story.

accusative

I wrote a long letter to my aunt.

accusative

I wrote a long letter to my aunt.

dative

He did not win the race.

genitive

I found the kittens a new home.

dative

The tiger lives in a zoo.

locative

That's the neighbor's cat.

genitive

You idiot, why'd you do that!

vocative

His computer is very old.

nominative

We gave him the money.

dative