Dokonany/Niedokonany - Perfective/Imperfective

This is something that I am struggling with at the moment (I find myself using things like jestem biorę until someone introduces me to wziąć), and I am trying to organize myself around the idea. Does anyone know any resources to locate Perfective/Imperfective pairs?

And does anyone know if there are any auxiliary verbs in Polish (will, shall), I miss them, haha?

'Musieć' = to have to (must)
'Powinnic' = ought to (should)
móc = to be able to (can)

.....are common modal verbs in Polish. "Auxilliaries" as in English "DO you speak Polish?" etc. don't exist in most languages other than English, in addition, Poles find English-language tag questions rather strange sounding. In English: "Do you like books?" -Yes, I DO. vs. Polish "Czy lubisz książki?" = Tak, lubię. (lit "...Yes, I like.)

Will have to get back to you later about the other verb questions.

That was really helpful thanks :) I never thought of 'do' that way, I find it funny how much I've learned about English grammer studying Polish!

I found a similar topic:
https://polishforums.com/archives/2005-2009/language/share-perfective-imperfective-verbs-17963/

It should be
powinien (he/on)/powinna (she/ona)/powinno (it/to/ono) = should

Powinienem, Powinnam

this verb simply has no infinitive form in Polish

btw, I've just noticed that there's a quite long Wikipedia article on this subject, I can't verify if all they say is true, but it's a good start (there are also some interesting links below that article)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_aspect
essayscam.org/forum/gt/grammarly-review-user-content-ownership-licensing-6266/

Whoops, guys! Clean forgot "powinnem" has no infinitive form (bezokolicznik!!).

Muchos apologies - - -:):)

this word doesn't even exist

This is correct grammar in English but in most European languages it is translated as I take therefore ja biorę-I am taking or ik neem as it would be in Dutch. The concept of I am doing something in the present tense is not a slavonic trend at all.

Buy a book of polish verbs. They are all listed with the differences between perfective and imperfective tenses.

Witaj, Wyśpiańsko!

Wiem. Poprawny jest 'powinniam', nie prawda?

Powinienem (male)
Powinnam (female)

Dzięki!

AVE lol


true : )

Merged: what is the dokonany form of rozumieć???

how can we make rozumiec with future meaning?

you're asking 2 diffrent questions here :)

rozumieć (imperfective) has the following basic forms (1st person, singular):
Past - rozumiałem
Present - rozumiem
Future - będę rozumieć/rozumiał

while the perfective form (zrozumieć) has the following basic forms (1st person, singular):
Past - zrozumiałem
Present - (none)
Future - zrozumiem

Since the begining i've supposed that.
But i weren't aware of the real reason - associations to aggression.
Prefix przy with core pierdolić create still coarse verb for the sake of the core
but little aggressive.
As a result original warning is not appaling anyway.
To be the honest it is hard to imagine how any other core or prefix could be used to express less aggression. And that the warning still stay effective.

IMO reader (of the translation) should been warned that in original main verb is coarse for the sake of its relations to sex activity what is taboo there,

not for the sake of aggression charge.

In other way translation insert false background
which in original is quite different.

Or should be added the note that translation is still coarse for the sake of swear systems incompatibility.
Or should be added the note that in original translated message/warning is far from to be appalling or shocking.

Best regards

Hey, are you insulting our F-word?!?! Go przypierdolić yourself!!!
(joke)

We dont have these fancy prefixes that you guys do, we just add other words. I know it sounds like a crazy concept but it works for us!

I...I just wanted an answer about grammar....not a language war!

See!!! See what you did to this poor girl!!

NOW can we get that group hug?

You should said: "Idź przypierdolić sobie" or even shorter and better:
"Idź, przypierdol sobie" or
"Idź i przypierdol sobie".
Both forms are 100% correct.

But never say: "Idź i przypierdolić sobie" - such expression is 100% inncorrect. I'm not a racist but to be honest i have to say we associate such incorrect expressions with bambo language.

Such expression act as a 100% prove you are not polish native speaker.

The same valid for forms without prefix przy- or forms with any other prefix.

Polish grammar is really easy innit ? ;-)


So f*** forms acting as a Mr Hyde prefixes, i see.


I'm ready but keep in mind i'm still weak.

You can't really "go przypierdolić yourself" :), you'd rather "go pierdolić yourself" (no prefixes needed here :D). And I'd personally choose the imperative mood here ;)


It's not me who started it :/ But don't worry, Kemaleon keeps on trying to call a truce... Coming soon, hopefully.


I could do it just for the common good :P


I have to disagree once again (I don't want to wage war, though). What Kemaleon had in mind was "pierdol się" (like in "go fuck yourself"). Don't you think saying "Idź i przypierdol sobie" sounds a bit unnatural?

"Hello Mr head, let me introduce you to Mr wall"

"Ah hello Mr wall, shall we get on with it?"

"Yes, lets"

*BANG - BANG - BANG - BANG - BANG - BANG - BANG - BANG - BANG - BANG - BANG - BANG - BANG - BANG - BANG - BANG - BANG - BANG - BANG - BANG*

I had no intention of causing a stir :P

No i don't.
For example: "Idź i przypierdol sobie głową w mur"
It is a kind of sarcastic request.
"Idź i przypierdol sobie" it is a shortest form which giving a freedom of choice how to do that.
It is anyway so much coarse as: "Pierdol się!"

I have to admit it is realy rare but it is a plus.
Such rare form of request showing you are clever individual than majority whos saying the most spreaded forms.

Rare forms prefix-core combinations focusing listener attention.
Coarse counterpart of "wonderfull" in polish is "zajebisty".
Instead of talking loudly "odlotowo zajebisty" we could talk "odjebisty" what is a little unnatural but very well understandable in polish and as a result focusing attention. Prefix "od-" acting the same as prefix "za-" (at this case) and as a plus focusing attention because it is a rare combination. Younger people have more tendency to gaming (such prefix games) than older.

Not all prefixes are usefull equal for such games but such "word games" are possible in polish i'm sure.


It isn't anyway so much coarse as: "Pierdol się!

I don't know, I think threatening sodomy with a shovel is pretty coarse.

Ha-ha, interesting arguments. It all comes down to the knowledge of English. Thanks for the intro to the use of pi*rdolić, btw - I didn't have problems understanding it as my language has the very same perpectives in that field! :D

AnotherGuest:
as I say, it all comes down to your knowledge of English. In English, I know some pretty rude things by now, but I have to rely on my own language as it is much more expressive. For example, my problem is that English swearings are just too short. In English, you end up with repeating f***ing a thousand times. It's only films you hear beautiful phrases of swearings like "Glorious piece of heavenly sh*t!" or "Holy p*ss on a willow-tree!". In real life, they never say things like that. (I think if it was Star Trek, the universal translator would easily be screwed up translating my swearings to English like "Should've you f*cked your wh*re mother in the mouth, you... etc.")

Regarding the associations: yeah, you just have to practice English to get used to their logic. I can't really elaborate that... In a way, I would agree that they can't "imply" meanings so easily as we'd think, though they have some pretty euphemisms -- I like "stuff it" or "sod" for "f*ck it". :) These ones are still not as good as, for instance, "let me push it in your mother" in my language - which does not sound rude by itself, but the associated meaning is "f*cking someone's mother" (e.g. she is a k*rwa!) and you would get killed if you said it to someone you argue with...

To sum it up, if you don't experience the particular language in real life, it is quite hard to understand/learn swear-words or/and associated meanings... Swearing is verbal, and will always be verbal ("oral"). We can write about it, but that's just not the same. :)

Watch out for the sexual connotations this word might carry ;)
I bet AnotherGuest will object ;)

Merged: Polish grammar-why does it hate me? More perfect/imperfect questions!

Hello everyone, once again its me with a question about the imperfect and perfect forms. For some reason this is my hardest concept of Polish grammar to understand.

A long time ago I printed out someones reply to me about perf/imperf, and it was really thorough. Now, Im looking at it all confused.

"Uzcyć-to teach someone something"
"Nauczyć- to teach someone to do something"

The poster noted (by the way, thanks to whoever posted this, I've used it for a long time and it is very detailed:) that uczyć is imperfect, and that nauczyć is in its perfect form. My question is: Does the endings of verbs have anything to do with wether they are perfect or imperfect? I noticed in the example in this post that uczyć becomes perfect when the prefix na- is added. Another question, I was trying to organize all of the verb endings in Polish and I came across 10, or maybe in reality its 5. For example, -ać, ować, nąć, iwać...and so on. Im wondering if "-ać" and "ować" are related, and if they are, if all verbs have "two" kinds of endings. I think it has something to do with aspect pairs, but I'm not really sure. I also think I've made some huge linguistic mistake that I've been warned to watch out for...anyway dziękuję za pomoc wszyscy:)

CO

Yeah it is a pain because we don't have this concept in English. But once you've go the hang of it you will realise that it's a lot simpler than verbs in English (I drank, I was drinking, I had drunk, I have drunk etc..). I hope this helps:

1. I notice you have added 'to do' in your perfective definition. Don't - the meaning is the same it's just the aspect that is different. Imperfective emphasises the state of the verb, perfective emphasises the result or change of state.

Example:
piłem kawę i ktoś zadzwonił - I was drinking coffee and somebody called. Drinking is imperfective because I am emphasising the action of drinking, i.e. what I was doing (the state) at the time of the call.

I could have said wypiłem kawę i ktoś zadzwonil which would be - I drank my coffee and somebody called. Here I put drinking in the perfective because the action of drinking was completed and then something else happened.

2. Yes often you will see that the perfective looks like the imperfective but with a prefix such as po, na, do, s, wy etc.. but the problem is, is that it's not always the case and it's not regular.

Example:
pić and wypić, jeść and zjeść

3. Often you can take a different prefix, add it to the imperfective and you get a slightly changed meaning.
Example:
If you take 'pić' you can have -
dopić - to drink up, upić (się) - to get drunk, odpić - to sip.
This is a useful construction because if you recognise the root of the word then you can often get the meaning, or at least the gist of it, but it's also a pain because you need to recognise that these are variants. For example how do you know unless you learnt it first that 'wypić' is the perfective of 'pić' and not in fact a variant meaning 'to drink out'? You don't...

Also sometimes you can get an oddball in there - such as obchodzić. Looks like it should mean 'to walk around' but also means 'to celebrate, to observe (a Holiday, religious occasion etc...)'.

3. Sometimes the pair is not made with a prefix but with a different ending as you mentioned. But again, no regularity to this.
Example - kupować and kupić, zamykać and zamknąć

4. Sometimes the imperfective looks nothing like the perfective.
Example - brać and wziąć

I recommend the book "301 Polish Verbs" by Klara Janecki which covers a lot of this stuff. It talks about prefixes, perfective/imperfective and then lists a lot of verbs and how to conjugate them.