I am just reading through the below site to begin studying Polish grammar:
en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Polish/Basic_grammar
The site basically says that "Czytam" means "I read" whereas "Przeczytam" means "I will read." I am now confusing as to how to conjugate future tenses in Polish. Do you add a prefix to the verb, such as "prze" and then just conjugate the verb using the present tense endings or do the verb endings differ? What I am trying to say is, is there a different verb for future tenses than the verb used in the present tense?
I am really confused now!!!
EDIT OK, so I've just found this site that now explains it en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Polish:Verbs
-- Adding a prefix (eg prze-) to an imperfective verb such as czytać in the present tense gives it a future meaning. There are no separate future endings in this case.
-- The future can also be formed with będę, będzie, etc. in which case the imperfective infitive czytać or past participial form czytał/czytała (depending on the speaker's gender) is used. Będę/będzie may not be used with perfective verbs.
-- There is a difference in meaning between przeczytam: very definite and determined: I WILL read a given book,. article, etc., whilst będę czytał/czytała (dependign on the speaker's gender) is more vague and indefinite (I will be reading, I'm going to read) and suggests some unspecified time in the future.
"zdawał sobie sprawę" meaning he knew what he was doing, or he was conscious, aware of his actions while "zdał sobie sprawę" means he had realized what he had done.
In the first case he is aware of what he is doing while he later becomes aware of his action and the consequence it brings in the second case.
Apr 27, 10, 18:27 - Thread attached on merging: imperfictive,perfictive
hello everybody my name is Omar from morocco 9months I`m in poland I speak a few polish, I have question what is deffirence between imperfictive verbs and perfictive? dzienki
Merged: A question about perfective vs. imperfective?
A question about perfective vs. imperfective (dokonany/niedokonany)
They teach that you have to use imperfective with repeated events, even if "completed". But how would you translate for example "I PASSED an exam every day"?
Can you say "Codziennie zdałem egzamin (a nie tylko zdawałem)"?
Merely confirming the usage of 'dokonany' (perfective) ONLY with 'one-time' actions/events-:) The addition of 'codziennie' 'zawszwe' and other conjunctive adverbs turns the sentence therefore into imperfective, conversely 'teraz' etc.. make the sentence perfective:
Idę (teraz) do szkoły. - dokonany Chodzę (codziennie) do szkoły. - niedokonany
The rules seem easy, application though can be more than a little tricky, 'specially when to a non-native speaker, a particular action might not even seem 'repetitive', except to a Pole (..and vice-versa!)
Examples:
Koncert spodobał mi się. - dokonany (TERAZ) Muzyka klasyczna podoba mi się. - niedokonany (ZAWSZE)
The problem for me is that usually an aspectual pair correspond to one only "meaning" in your native language(s). But there are exceptions, where niedokonany and dokonany "mean" different things: for example uczyć się/nauczyć się polskiego (in English both are "to learn Polish", but in other languages the first is "to study" and the second "to succesfully learn"), or zdawać/zdać egzamin (to take an exam/to pass it).
So you can wonder how to express such concepts as "to learn and become fluent in a new language every month" (as opposed to just studying it), or "to pass an exam every day" (as opposed to just take it).
Lyzko, I am really sorry to say, but you are wrong. “Chodzić “as well as “iść” are both imperfective. “chodzić” has no perfective equivalent “iść” has “pójść” as an perfective equivalent. But what is more important: the point is that the theory of imperfective versus perfective verbs does not work for foreigners. I have been teaching Polish for foreigners for over 10 year and I cannot understand why Polish teachers repeat these confusing clichés. Anyway I wish you success in learning Polish. Good night and good luck!
Polish Tutor, perhaps a better choice of words would have been:
"chodzić"/"chadzać" - iterative (imperfective= repeated or daily activity!!)
"iść" - determinate (perfective = occurring at the present time, as in my above example)
'.....Anyway, I wish you success in learning Polish.'
Any time you'd like a few extra pointers on learning more English, I too am always ready, willing and able-:))
"Good night and good luck!" Hmmm, sounds like you've been listening to old broadcasts of Edward R. Murrow LOL
"nauczyć" without reflexive may also be "to teach" as well as "to learn" (not that the two actions aren't in a philosophical sense related..something far too many teachers (nauczyciele) often forget or ignore-:) ) "Wykładać" + genitive I've also seen and used for "teach", more in the sense of "to give a formal lecture", "hold a class", "give a lesson" etc.
"Wykładam języka angielskiego na uniwersytecie." = I teach English at university
My Polish teacher whose English was awful, would say if someone interrupted her class by knocking on the door, "Plisss, aj emm LAATURRINK rrrajt naouu!", instead of "Sorry, but I'm TEACHING right now."
You simply can't use dokonany with repeated events
Yes, it's a gap in out otherwise perfect grammar system he he ;-)
We usually don't notice things like that unless trying to teach someone speaking Polish. I observerd my daughter when she was learning speaking and noticed many interesting things. Children, in general easily adopt all rules and often extend them and use beyond what is allowed in 'official' grammar, so sometimes they fix gaps like this one. I think a smart kid would say here: 'zdawywałem'. It's of course incorrect from 'official' grammar poit of view, but personally I think it perfectly expresses what you need :-)
Very often, to be honest, there is no difference between the perfective and the imperfective aspect: 'koncert spodobał mi się' and 'koncert podobał mi się' are virtually the same. But often there is such a difference, for example when we are describing repetitive actions: "codziennie znajdowałem jakieś pieniądze na ulicy ..." means that I performed a perfective action every day to pick it up, but I can add that: "... i dzisiaj także je znalazłem" using the perfective aspect, since 'dzisiaj' introduces a one-time event.
So if I wanted to express an action in the past tense, would it be safe to say that imperfective/niedokonany translates to the English "was doing" or "used to do", and the perfective/dokonany would be "did"?
yes, it is largely so - I cannot think of any exceptions now but I'm pretty sure there are some - appart from verbs and expressions that perfective and imperfective interchange smoothly like in the example Ziemowit has given
