Help me understand Polish imperfective vs perfective verbs?

I wholeheartedly concur, gumishu : D

Kind of like German native speakers explaining case endings and articles (in English) to foreigners! OUCH!!!

Furthermore, sometimes the aspect verb pairs look completely different from each other, such 'brać' and 'wziąć', both of which translate as "take", but don't mean the same-;) It can be hard for foreigners to know instinctively which form to use, even if it's clear that either the perfective or imperfective is required in a certain context!

Now you're scarying me hahahaha

heh - yeah - you should not take it too seriously though - it's not about contemplating it for months - but it takes time to get used to it in your own thinking before you can master it in practice - for some it will take considerable time for some it will just almost happen overnight

it's gonna be all right - don't worry :)

Like anything else, with sufficient practice and above all patience, you too'll master Polish aspects just like the rest of us "greenhorns"-:::))) LOL You'll get there, Dominik.

I'm STILL workin' on 'em and I've been at it a lot longer that you have!

Try to think before you write or say something in Polish; am I doing something, i.e. performing an action, only ONCE or REPEATEDLY. If the answer is ONCE, use the PERFECTIVE, ('perfektum' in Latin means 'finished', after all!!), if the answer is REPEATEDLY, use the the IMPERFECTIVE > 'imperfektum' meaning 'incomplete, indicating the habitual nature of the action. Sometimes, the latter is referred to variously as 'frequentative' or 'iterative'.

Further examples hopefully to help clarify this point:

jeść = to eat
(z)jeść = to eat (up), consume right then and there

Jemy wieczorem obiad o god. 7mej. = We have dinner at seven in the evening. [EVERY evening!]
Zjemy teraz bigos, kiełbasy i pierogi ze serem i ziemniakami. = We're now having hunter's cabbage, sausage and filled dumplings with cheese and potatoes.

Make a little more sense now?
-:)

Yeah it makes sense :)
I think with enough practice, I'll be able to understand which verb to use right away!
Thanks for the help guys!
Do you know some ways I can practice how to write Polish, and how to learn new words everyday? Should I read a lot? I do read Polish, and when I don't understand I translate words using google translate or some online dictionary and try to memorize words and their meanings.....

In a more general way, in learning a foreign language, it is extremely important to have repetitions of the language material you've already done some time earlier (it shouldn't be too quckly after that, however). Before you get to such material again, try to recall as much of it (by trying to write it down, for example] as you are able to do. You will see then how much of it you have forgotten. In my view, this is much more important then moving to new thing all the time. You really don' have to learn new words everyday as you will forget them sooner or later [ponieważ prędzej czy później zapomnisz je / ponieważ prędzej czy później będziesz je zapominał*] unless you don't memorize them pretty firmly which is why you should do regular repetitions.

*) this Polish sentence here is an example illustrating the fact that you are perfectly entitled to use either the perfective or the imperfective aspect of a verb in the same situation context, something about which foreign people learning Polish or Polish people advising them on that tend to forget.

In the same "context", Ziemowit, true enough, but not necessarily with the same meaning-:)

Apologies for being a bit of a pill here (my usual MO = modus operandi), but in your two example sentences, "zapomnisz" vs "zapomniał" might have an ever so subtely different translation. Then again, we foreigners typically translate often too much, much as you many Poles do when they're learning English-:)

I'm not finding fault in any way with your observations, only that frequently those grey areas of aspectual usage tend to elude non-Poles, much as do the vagueries of word order in German, spelling in English, the partitive genitive or accusative in Finnish, 'soy'/'estar' in Spanish etc.....

in some instances perfective and imperfective can be used interchangeably with but very subtle (if any) change in meaning - the example Ziemowit has given is a good illustration

To be honest, the concept of the perfective and imperfective aspects in Polish is really a very difficult one to teach it to a non-Slavic speaker. I am ready to admit that I will be failing to do so as I am pretty sure that a foreign learner will always have trouble in feeling "safe" within the subject, irrespective of the number of hours of study he has devoted to it. But I may be wrong as most probably there are foreign people who have managed to master it very well, if not perfectly well. In that case, they should be the best experts to tell us what the clue that leads to the depths of understanding the difference is.

As usual, it is good to refer to the most basic definitions, the "archetypic" ones, if I may call it so. For me, this may lie in the name of the aspects: "dokonany" will mean: "dokonać czegoś!" - 'I've done it or 'I did it' or 'I had done it' or 'I would have done' or 'I will do it' or 'I will have done'. The other end of the spectrum will be "niedokonany", so it will mean: "dokonywać czegoś" - 'I have been doing it' or 'I did it' or 'I was doing it' or 'I will do it' or I will be doing it' etc. This is in line with what you have aptly described above as DURATION, while with the former aspect we communicate to the speaker the fact that the result of an action 'has been' or 'was' or 'was being' or 'will be' achieved, in other words this action 'waits to be achieved yet'.

Agreed, Ziemowit! Every language has challenges which particularly consternate the non-native learner. In Polish, it seems to be verb aspects.

Ziemowit, you're so confused about "niedokonany". But I admire you work on polish so assidiously.

Albeit a non-native Pole, I must disagree, Time! I think Ziemowit's examples in the last post are right on point. It's perhaps only as a non-native ENGLISH SPEAKER that his explantion to another non-native speaker might appear unclear. Stuff like this happens all the time in such fora; a Spaniard makes a point in English which is then picked up by a Latvian, Bulgar or German, who then responds in English as the international language of misscommunication and, there you have it!

In a nutshell, ALL "-ywać"-verbs are NIEdokonany (imperfective) and most prefixed verbs are dokonany (perfective).

Perfective/imperfective:
So:
I did homework. It is perfective. The homework was already done.
I'm doing homework. It's imperfective. The homework is being done.
:)

Correct, that's basically it-::))

I am sorry Lyzko, but I have few problems with your explanation here. The #1 is not complete because the verb "jemy" may mean two things: the action in the present tense, as well as in the future.

Poczekaj, jemy właśnie obiad, zadzwonię później.
Wait, we are having dinner now, I'll call you later. (Current action, "present continuous")

Jemy obiad w tej restauracji każdego dnia.
We take dinner in this restaurant every day. (Repetitive action)

But being at it, I'll add few more "imperfective" forms, outside your example #1:

Jadamy u Havelka od czasu do czasu.
We take dinnner at Havelek's restaurant from time to time. (Occasional, yet still repetitive action.)

Dzisiaj będziemy jeść obiad raczej późno.
We will have our dinner rather late tonight. (One time future action - but no promise to finish the dinner)

Od dzisiaj będziemy jadać w tej stołówce.
From now on we will be having meals in this cantina. (Repetetive, future)

Your second example cannot be interpreted as something taking place in in the present. The "perfective" (dokonane) actions can only refer either to the past or to the future.

So your #2 example, has two problems - both Polish and English.

Polish: Zjemy (zaraz, wkrótce) bigos, kiełbasę oraz pierogi z serem i ziemniakami.

You could use "zaraz" or "wkrótce" but - strictly speaking - not "teraz". "Teraz" (now) signifies present, "wkrótce" and "zaraz" (soon) are in the future. I guess you could use "teraz" to signify very near future, but such form is not 100% correct.

I am not sure about English translation of this sentence, but this will probably do:
English: We will (soon) have hunter's stew, sausage and dumplings with cheese and potatoes.
So it is definitely a future action, not present.

However, I am not sure how to stress its perfective aspect in English, without adding some supportive sentence, like this:
"After having dinner we will go to the movies." Here the aspect is obvious, since we declare our intention of finishing the dinner first.

"Zjemy......."

"We will be having....." is the translation which fits here best, Boletus. Your English is just fine for basic purposes! Polish is notoriously tricky to translate into English. The reverse isn't exactly a piece of cake either, tell ya the truth-:)

Oups! I'm sorry, indeed I have confused things a little: in the last sentence of my last post, 'was being' and the part from the last coma (in other words this action...) should be thrown out. I think I must now get a rest from these damned aspects of Polish verb ;-)

Lyzko:
Aside from that ("We will be having"), do you agree with my corrections of your explanation?

"Będziemy zjadł" would be the correct form, wouldn't it?

There is no such form. Będziemy jadać, będziemy jeść is OK, będziemy zjadać - acceptable.

Yes, aside from that misstep, I'd have to agree that it sounds much as I learned it.

Ooooops! Now pardon ME! I was under the impression that not only the infinitive could be used, as in 'Będę jadł(a)'. But because it's plural ("będziemy"), that changes matters, i guess!

A number of Polish verbs have ONLY an imperfective form! This means they cannot be 'perfectivized', even if one wanted to!

dominik88:


Check this position: Grammar of the Polish language, by Grzegorz Jagodziński: grzegorj.w.interia.pl/gram/en/gram00.html

His treatment of aspects is quite concise. See Part seven, Morphology - inflected parts of speech, p. 4: grzegorj.w.interia.pl/gram/en/gram06.html .

I like this resource but since I am not an expert I looked around for some review. And this is where I found the following recommendation:

Kings College London, Polish Learning Resources, Category - Advanced:


kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/mlc/olc/online/polish.aspx

It seems to me that the most essential of all verbs in any language, TO BE, is among them (or is both perfective and imperfective at the same time?). Thus we may arrive at the conclusion that being perfective is more important than being imperfective (at least in the Polish language!).

"More important", Ziemowit??

You'll have to explain that.

I'm still waiting-:)

Well, it has been some sort of deliberate exageration, I admit. All I wanted to say was that from the point of view of a foreign learner, it might be handy to assume that one aspect of the verb is "more important" than the other; this just for the purposes of learning only. In seeing this problem in that specific and somewhat distorted light, the learner may tell himself that the imperfective aspect is needed in particular situations only, those in which the duration of unaccomplished action should be clearly underlined, and thus expressed accordingly. So I was trying to encourage the learner to "give preference" to the perfective aspect in the process of learning. In other words, I was trying to tell him: "Try to think of the perfective as basic, while of the imperfective as rather peculiar (or less common).

The thing that made me do so was a quick look at the headlines on the wirtualna polska website which on that day all displayed the verbs in them (used in tenses other than the present tense) in perfective aspect.

Thanks, very much, Ziemowit. Am puzzling it all out, but have decided merely to chalk it up to cultural differences of instruction-:)

Ziemowit


This is what makes it difficult for a foreigner, and not only regarding verbs. While the first form people learn when starting a new language is the present tense -and therefore, imperfective in Polish - and usually the imperfective is the "basic" form as well (robić, to which you add a prefix to make it perfective, zrobić), it is actually the perfective that is used the most, I think, both in the past, in the infinitive and in the (positive) imperative. Besides, most common adjectives derived from verbs are more "complicated", as they are derived from the perfective verb: jestem zmęczony, znudzony, przestraszony, ...