Let’s practise Polish verbs! Listen to the song and complete the lyrics. Do you know all the verbs used there?
If the exercise is not working, you may find it here.
Most verbs in the lyrics are used in present tense, there are two verbs used in future tense (nie zdążysz, zgubisz). Read one of our previous posts to learn more about Polish future tense.
Obejrzyj wideo i naucz się kilku przydatnych zwrotów związanych z czasem. Poćwicz nowe słownictwo wykonując ćwiczenie poniżej. Powodzenia!
Watch the video and learn few useful time-related phrases. Practise the new vocabulary completing the exercise below. Good luck!
If the exercise is not working you may find it here.
Play the game and check how well you know Polish motion verbs.
If you still struggle when to use iść/chodzić, jechać/jeździć and how those verbs are conjugated, read our previous post about verbs of motion.
Good luck!
If the game is not working you may find it here
Learning grammar doesn’t have to be boring! Are you, like me, a fan of The Lion King (Król Lew)? 🙂 Listen to the Polish version of one of the songs from the film and practise Polish verb conjugation. Below the exercise you will find a list of the verbs from the song and their conjugation types. Good luck!
If the exercise is not working you may find it here.
Verbs from the song:
przychodzić (-ę, -isz) – to come
posyłać (-m, -sz) – to send
spełniać się (-m, -sz) – to be fulfilled, to come true
czuć (czuj-ę, czuj-esz) – to feel
przybywać (-m, -sz) – to come (used mostly in literature and poetry)
wiedzieć (wie-m, wie-sz) – to know
wirować (wiruj-ę, wiruj-esz) – to spin
mieć (ma-m, ma-sz) – to have
odnajdować (odnajduj-ę, odnajduj-esz)/forma perfective odnaleźć – to find, to rediscover
trwać (-m, -sz) – to last
Interesting fact!
In the lyrics you can find the word swe which is a version of the posessive pronoun swoje. Feminine and neuter pronouns: moja/moje, twoja/twoje and swoja/swoje have shorter versions ma/me, twa/twe, swa/swe which are used in very formal texts or poetry.
If you like the post check also Learn Polish with a song – miejscownik case (locative)
In all languages two types of contact can be distinguish – formal and informal. In English the difference between those two is little but in Polish the cultural context is strongly expressed in grammar structures.
Addressing someone formally in Polish we replace the standart forms ty or wy with their formal equivalents:
pan – addressing a man
Jak się nazywasz? – Jak się pan nazywa?
pani – addressing a woman
Gdzie mieszkasz? – Gdzie pani mieszka?
państwo – addressing a couple or a group of men and women
Co robicie? – Co państwo robią?
panie – addressing a group of women
Gdzie idziecie? – Gdzie panie idą?
panowie – addressing a group of men
O czym rozmawiacie? – O czym panowie rozmawiają?
As you may notice in the exemples above in formals senctences we not only add the words like pan, pani, państwo..but also change the form of the verbs to third form singular or plural. So in the sentence like Gdzie pani mieszka? what we say exactly is Where does the lady live? (Gdzie pani mieszka?), the same Gdzie państwo idą? – Where are they going? (Gdzie państwo idą?). Not addressing a person directly as ty or wy but as on/ona or oni/one is a sign of respect.
Polish is a quite formal language so talking to a person we don’t know (doesn’t metter their age as long as they’re not underage), to someone who is older that we are or in any kind of oficial situation the formal forms need to be used. What’s interesting, even people arguing on the street and using invectives far from appropreate will still adress each other as pan/pani.
Nowadays due to the influence of English, usage of the forms pani/pani has becoming less strict between young people especially in the Internet communication and some formal situations.
It is worth to mention that in written Polish, no matter if it is a formal or informal conversation or what age the person is, the forms of the pronouns ty and wy are always spelled with a capital letter.
e.g. Mam się dobrze, dziękuję. A Ty? – I’m well, tank you. And you?
Czy Twoja mama przyjeżdża na weekend? – Is your mom coming for the weekend?
Czy mogę Wam pomóc? – Can I help you?
If the exercise doesn’t work you may find it here.
If the exercise doesn’t work you may find it here.
If you would like to learn more about Polish prefixation and changes of meaning read my previous post
Join our FIRST FREE POLISH LANGUAGE CHALLENGE!
8 topics | 60 days | 30 minutes a day
start: 8th of March
📈 you will create a studying routine
📈you will maintain your motivation
📈 you will break the speaking barrier and crash the shyness
📈you will revise or learn new vocabulary on the most popular conversation topics
For Upper Beginners and Intermediate students. The Challenge has two levels.
📚 Sign up for the challenge here https://goo.gl/t1cKqA
📚Record a simple, spontanous video to set your starting point (It can like ours or simpler but in Polish ofc. (Link below)) .
📚 Upload it in our group https://goo.gl/JTHNxP . Later you will be asked to record a video/ audio or write a short text every week (the choice is yours and it’s not obligatory but recommended!)
📚 For 60 days you are going to get e-mails with exercises and tasks. Short ones. Max 30 minutes a day of work. The exercises will cover 8 interesting topics.
We are in it with you. I am learning Romanian and Paulina – Egyptian Arabic. We are going to record videos and study 30 minutes every day just like you do! Here is Paulina’s video : https://youtu.be/hXBlzcLm19c
Look at the sentence in the post’s title. Do you understand it? It contains two interesting forms called rzeczownik odczasownikowy (prasowanie, a noun discribing action of ironing) and imiesłów (sprzątając, which can be translate as ‘while cleaning’).
How to create and use both of the forms?
It’s an equivalent of English gerund form. Although it might resemble a verb, it’s a noun – is used and declied like all nouns.
Look at the exemples:
Gotowanie jest relaksujące. – Cooking is relaxing.
Nie lubię pływania – I don’t like swimming.
Muszę kupić proszek do pieczenia. – I need to buy baking powder
Pamiętaj o zrobieniu zakupów. – Remember about shopping.
To form rzeczownik odczasownikowy, three endings are used
–nie – with verbs that end in -ać and -eć e.g. pływać : pływanie, gotować : gotowanie, myśleć : myślenie, pisać : pisanie
– enie – with verbs that end in -ić and -yć e.g. chodzić : chodzenie, mówić : mówienie, uczyć : uczenie, tańczyć : tańczenie
– cie – with short verbs and those that end in -ąć e.g. pić : picie, myć : mycie, zamknąć : zamknięcie
It’s an adverbial participle that express a simultanious action and carries the meaning while …-ing
e.g.
Wracając do pracy spotkałem starego kolegę. – Coming back from work I met an old friend.
Gotując lubię słuchać muzyki. – While cooking I like listen to music.
Będąc w Krakowie, odwiedzi koleżankę. – While being in Kraków, she will visit her friend.
Imiesłów is created simply by adding -c to the 3rd person plural form (present tense) e.g czytają : czytając, pracują : pracując, idą : idąc. The exeption is the verb być which uses the future stem – będą : będąc.
Imiesłów is indeclinable.
link to the exercise
If your New Year’s resolution is to spend more time studying Polish, here’s something for you. 🙂
Read the text, learn new vocabulary and practice the future tense.
postanowienia noworoczne – tekst
postanowienia noworoczne – odpowiedzi
Do you remember how to form Polish future tense?
In the future tense, same like in the past tense, both perfective and imperfective verbs are used. The usage of the forms is similar to the past tense.
Imperfective forms:
A) express rutine and regular action
Codziennie będę jeść śniadanie. – I will eat breakfast every day.
B) express actions that take time
Cały dzień będziemy pracować nad projektem. – All day we will be working on the project.
C) express simultaneous action
Ona będzie słuchać muzyki i gotować obiad. – She will be listening to the music and cooking a dinner.
D) express action with no result or when result is not important
Będziesz sprzątać mieszkanie. – You will be cleaning the flat.
Perfective forms:
A) express one time actions
Jutro zjem śniadanie. – I will eat breakfast tomorrow.
B) express quick action
Szybko skończysz projekt. – You will finish the project quickly.
C) express chronological actions
On posłucha muzyki, a później ugotuje obiad. – I will listen to the music and then cook a dinner.
D) express completed action
Posprzątacie mieszkanie. – I will clean the apartment.
As you may notice in the examples creating above, imperfective future tense is created by using conjugated verb ‘to be’ and an infinitive for of a verb
(ja) będę sprzątać
(ty) będziesz pracować
(on/ona/ono) będzie biegać
(my) będziemy oglądać film
(wy) będziecie gotować
(oni/one) będą słuchać muzyki
Perfective future forms are formed by conjugating perfective verbs according to present tense patterns:
zjeść – zjem
ugotować – ugotuję
zrobić – zrobię
posprzątać – posprzątam
kupić – kupię
zamówić – zamówię