Verb Aspect: Dawać vs Dać

Hey guys,

Another grammatical question, and this time it's a real whopper.

I'm trying to get my head around the whole verb aspect situation in Polish. To start, can someone explain to me the difference between these two:

Imperfective: Pan dawał

VS

Perfective: Pan dał

Or how about:

Imperfective: Będę dawał

VS

Perfective: Dam

Looking forward to your responses and thanks in advance!

-Joe

dac = to give
dawac = to be giving (continuously for a period of time), in Polish only has past or future, present is "daje" ("dawaje" does not exist)

dam - I will give
bede dawal - I will be giving
Pan dal vs. Pan dawal is same thing, but relating to the past.
What are you translating - Bible or something???

To be honest this would take too long to explain properly on Polish forums, you will also have other questions later so I recommend that you buy Hurra Po Polsku 1 or another grammar book. Hurra Po Polsku 1 and the exercise book are worth the money. There is a page about the question that you asked here, exercises in the exercise book and the answers are at the back of the book.

Best of luck. prolog publishing

most verbs in Polish have 2 forms, perfective and imperfective.

Main uses you should learn at this time:

The perfective form is going to be simple future and simple past.

Imperfective will usually be your present simple and progressive past forms (and sometimes a kinda sorta version of present perfect).

brac/wziac

biore - I take
bralem - I was taking

wezme - I'll take
wzialem - I took

you can't use a perfective past form with "byc" when constructing future tense. i.e., you can't say "bede dal" or "bede wzial", you would simply use the conjugated perfective form "dam" or "wezme". it's a btch, but it's Polish.

learn the perfective/imperfective forms and fight with all your inner strength to not say things like "bede isc" or "bede pojechac" or something. you will never learn proper Polish if you keep using it as a crutch. Don't speak Polish like the Chinese guy at your local 'Yummy Taste' speaks English.

take notes all day long on verbs you need every day, look up both perfective and imperfective forms, and absolutely hammer conjugation exercises till you can roll with them. it's the only road to good Polish.

Take another related verb example (though with a VERY different meaning) "podać się" (perfective) vs. "podDAWać się" imperfective) = to give up something

"Jeszcze studujesz język niemiecki na uniwersytecie?" - Tak. Bardzo trudny jest, ale nie podawaję [NIE: "podaję] się! = Are you still studying German at college? - Yes. it's really hard, but I'm not going to give up!

Sorry to rain on your parade again, Lyzko, but it's nie poddaję się, from poddać się (podać means to pass/hand over).


actually, będę iść is ok, even if colloquial, as iść is not a perfective verb.

This is written in Polish and Josephk doesn't speak it, so he is going to struggle i think.

Lyzko, I have been reading your posts, and I'm impressed by your perseverance in giving imperfect advice to learners. Have you thought of not doing that?

the point i was making is that he should not use that structure "as a crutch" because he'll never learn proper forms, he'll just keep using the infinitive which is a road to failure.

Dzięki, Strzygu! Polska ortografia, trudna ortografia:-)

Allofon, ditto LOL

By the way, Allo, was that "imperfect" or "imperfectIVE advice"?? He-he!!

Do you mean e.g i should always say będę rozumiała, będę prasowała instead of będę rozumieć and będę prasować ?

Friends have said using the Infinitive is fine, but it is more common to use the Imperfective. Hope i have grasped the point correctly!

To me you have, Pam. My understanding's the same.

that's true


Both are fine.
However, sometimes the perfective forms are necessary too - uprasuję, zrozumiem.

no. what i am saying is you should say "zrozumiem", etc.

poles will say "oh yeah it's fine" but you need to break the habit. there are certain "bede + imperfect past tense form" that are at times the preferred version or let's say they are used often, but you gotta learn the "true" forms to learn polish properly.

if you don't take this advice i can promise you that you will start to hear forms of verbs that you will not recognize and it will kill your comprehension.

Fuzzy, it's not that "uprasuję" is the true and preferred form and "będę prasować" untrue. I think you know this. Both are true and necessary in the language. They're different and convey slightly different meaning. You cannot really substitute one for the other.The point is you need to know when to use one or the other. Yes, the learner should know the perfective forms, but to use them exclusively would be equally wrong as using exclusively the "będę + infinitive" construction. Sometimes it's "zrozumiem" and other times "będę rozumieć".

again, what i am trying to convey to JosephK is that you can't use "bede + infinitive" or "bede + past imperfect" as a crutch. it will ruin your polish.

think about it, it's the easiest thing to do for an English speaker. "I will + verb". It's easier because there's less to learn and it "sounds" and "feels" like English (I'm assuming the OP is a native English speaker) so once again, i can't stress enough that you need to learn how to conjugate verbs in all their forms and not just memorize 500 infinitives and think, "bede and then I'll just throw the verb at the end and i'm all set!"

i'm starting to get repetitive but i think you get what i'm saying.

I do and it's fine as long as you don't overdo it.