seen / saw usage

would i be right in saying that if i wanted to say, ' i have seen that movie' or what have you seen' i would use the word zobacz.

czy pan zobaczyłeś - have you seen
kiedy masz zobacz - what have you seen

thanks

chaza

Not for a movie - it's oglądac...

but im i right about the concept of seen

Nie, it would be jaki film oglądałeś or jaki film Pan oglądał?

Kiedy masz zobaczyć means 'when are you to look?'

what should i have said then. if i wanted to say 'have you seen fred today'

chaza

Czy zobaczyłeś/widziałeś Freda dzisiaj? Or czy spotkałeś się z Fredem dzisiaj?

so my only mistake was using zobczyć and not zobaczyłeś.

chaza

You're right: widzieć/oglądać/zobaczyć film - everything is correct.

i still seem to having dificulty in the word order, especially when i want to ask a question like the above, i am still grapling with the czy concept. i think i have to say the question to myself before i add the czy. i.e

you see fred. then add the czy to mean have you seen fred.

does that indecate i'm getting there

chaza

It is flexible that way. Oglądać appears to be the most common. Chaza, I was correcting your form only.

English changes tense and Polish changes verb. As noreenb said, there are 3 verbs in play. In English, present perfect simple and past simple. Brits say 'have you eaten yet?' whereas Americans say 'did you eat yet?'. It's just preference.

No, czy simply means whether but is used as a question word too. You've been told this before, right? JustysiaS told you this.

Czy Pan rozumiał co ja mówiłem przed chwilą? Did Sir understand what I said a moment ago?

Nie wiem czy będę póżniej. I don't know if/whether I'll be (along) later.

i understand that seanus, but my frustration is being undertsood. its difficuklt enough, i think my polish is gettinmg better, at least my cousin in torun says so, but do want to get a handle on these concepts, if its not perfect, i at least wantto be undertsood.

chaza

Polish draws more of a distinction between progressive and non-progressive than between present perfect simple and past simple.

Co robiłeś wczoraj? What were you doing yesterday?

Co zrobiłeś wczoraj? What did you do yesterday?

Polish is very much a contextual language and if you are unsure you just have to ask or glean the meaning from the surrounding context.

thank folks, i have been told before, but in my frustration i keep asking myself the same questions forgetting your answers before, my apologies, one day the penny will drop.

with my previous question, about did you see that movie, the other verb that comes into play is mayber obserwować

chaza

Do not use "zobaczyć" for this purpose. When talking about a movie use.... :

Widziałeś ten film?
Oglądałeś ten film?

You can add "czy" in front of those above, but it is not absolutely necessary here.

The verb "zobaczyć" implies: "have you succeeded/managed to see?"

czy pan zobaczyłeś - should be: Czy Pan widział (ten film)?
kiedy masz zobacz - now, this construction is totally incorrect, it should rather be:

Co widziałeś?, Co Pan widział?

or when relating to a movie: Jaki film widziałeś/oglądałeś?

you can say:

Widziałem ten film
Obejrzałem ten film (I've watched that movie)
Zobaczyłem ten film would be the least correct but in some context may be ok. Zobaczyć means rather to notice or to spot.


Czy pan zobaczył would be gramatically correct
but it should be Czy pan widział


kiedy = when
masz = you have is sense to own.
In polish language you have 3 tenses: past, present, future. We don't have perfect tenses. Don't translate literally the grammar from english into polish. These 2 different languages. You don'r have a modal verb "to have" in polish (as in polish there is no present perfect tense). You should first study grammar a little bit :)

what have you seen = co widziałeś

but

what movie have you seen = jaki film widziełeś - literally: which movie (you) saw

My advice. Don't bother yourself and omit pan, pani, ja, ty. It will be forgiven for a foreigner.

Just remember endings
widziałeś film, widziałem - boy
widziałaś film, widziałam - girl

czytałeś, oglądałeś, jechałeś, piłeś, jadłeś, spałeś, pisałeś, biegłeś, kupowałeś etc

i am quite familiar with the endings, but in my effortbto tranlate what i want to say, from english to polish i forget them often, and to a large degree that is what frustrates me, i know them but fail to use them when i translate. and also when i converse. i often wonder what do i sound like to a pole.

i think on a scale of 1..10 my polish is about 4.5

thanks to all you guys
chaza

At least try to fight down a habit to use/translate I / Ja at the beginning.