Verb aspect exercises

Hi,

I've been studying polish intensely for 4 years and am quite fluent, however I still very often feel unsure about the verb aspect.
I'm looking for a good source of examples/exercises.
I stumbled across the book "Czas na czasownik" by Piotr Garncarek but haven't bought it yet. Has anybody used it or can recommend something else?

Thanks,
Arnaud

The best I could find: 301 Polish Verbs by Klara Janecki.

This book is great. It has both examples and exercises (self-tests). The verbs are fully conjugated in all the tenses and are alphabetically arranged.

I have never heard of Czas na czasownik so I am unable to compare the two.

Very reasonably priced too.

Time for one of the dirty-little-secrets about learning Polish that textbook writers would rather die than admit: ..... Aspect isn't that big a deal. Okay, okay, it is a big deal in a way, but if you ever graduate to using the language in context (including reading things meant for native speakers) it kind of disappears as a concern.

I do remember seeing lists of 'aspect pairs' and worrying how I'd ever learn them at all, much less keep them straight. When I began spending time in Poland I spent too much time on other things to pay much attention to aspect and it didn't impinge on my ability to understand or speak the language in ways that native-speakers found acceptable.

Of course a non-native speaker will make lots of mistakes with aspect by not paying that much attention to the aspect pairs but guess what? A non-native speaker will make lots of mistakes no matter what approach they take. Aspect choice is a little like articles in English there's a lot of overlap and individual choice and context sensitive factors that go into aspect and the best thing to do is not to try to learn in advance but pay attention (easier said than done) to real usage.

Also learning the morphological rules behind forming perfective verbs from imperfective ones (and vice versa) is worth much more than memorizing pairs of verbs.

Take instruction manual, place back on bookshelf, go forth and communicate, for it is imperfective and so will you be. (I think that's the gist of it). Why do instruction manuals omit articles? Who knows?



I have been meaning to indulge in the aforementioned text book, but never seem to get round to buying it, easy as doing so may be and at such a low cost as Mr. Sausage says. I have seen a few short lists of verbal twins, but I only ever really learn to speak the words I actually use. I can understand some of these twin words, but without actually remembering exactly what they are. Sometimes just understanding and being understood seem more important.

I finally bought "Czas na czasownik" and it is great.
It doesn't contain conjugation tables and verb lists (which you can find in other books), rather it contains many texts and exercises about a wide range of verb-related topics: aspect (primary and secondary, determinate and indeterminate forms of verbs of motion), prefixes and their meanings (one entire chapter for each prefix), participles, gerund.

The lesson texts are written in a colloquial style, not the usual artificial textbook language.
I wholeheartedly recommend it.