Share Perfective and Imperfective Polish verbs

I'd be glad if you share some dokonane (Perfective) and niedokonane (Imperfective) verbs here! I'll start then!

pisać - napisać

widzieć - zobaczyć
kończyć(się) - skończyć(się)
jechać - pojechać
czytać - przeczytać

robić - zrobić
wracać - wrócić
budzić się - obudzić się

kochać - pokochać
kochać się - zakochać się
ranić - zranić
rozumieć - zrozumieć
mówić - powiedzieć
rozmawiać - porozmawiać

Pisać-napisać
podkreślać-podkreślić
bawić się-zabawić się
spostrzegać-spostrzec

Napisałem = perfective
Pisałem = imperfective

Can i generalize and say that:

perfective = finished actions
imperfective = not finished actions.... I mean <verb>+ing

Can i generalize like that?????? :)))))

i guess it must be something like that!:))))))))

brać - wziąć
nosić - nieść
iść - pójść
wodzić - wieść
dawać - dać
nazywać - nazwać
wzywać - wezwać (phonetic reasons for this additional "e")
lecieć - polecieć
jechać - pojechać


the correct pair:
zakochiwać się - zakochać się

Not necessarilly. Some actions may be assumed as completed even though a verb is imperfective.

I'd say imperfective verbs will be used for actions whose status of completeness is unknown/uncertain, assumed (from the context), irrelevant or indeterminate.

Someone deleted my reply for the SECOND time... ://////// Please, if there is any problem with it, just message me telling why :)

I'm going to post again, cause i don't see any problem in that...
So.....

Napisałem = perfective
Pisałem = imperfective

Can i generalize and say that:

perfective = ended actions
imperfective = actions that are unfinished...

can i generalize for EVERY verb? or at least the majority?????? :)

thanks

Yes


No

z_darius thank you a lot! :)

Could you tell me the cases about imperfective verbs???? I don't really get when i'll use the imperfective as an 'unfinished action' or in other case (wich i don't know what could be)... Could you explain me? :) thanks!

LCzachor,

the thing is not so much on the nature of the verb itself but more on the context.
It is not so easy to put this into rules, so I'll try some examples.


- Wczoraj czytalem ksiazke (I was reading a book yesterday. Irrelevant whether I finished it or not. It is not known. The stress here is on what I was doing, and not on what I accomplished. A follow up question could be : "I przeczytales?". That clearly asks about the result of the act of reading.)

- W zeszlym roku zdawalem egzaminy na studia (Last year I was taking my college entrance exams. If I am a student now then it means that the act of taking the exams was complete, and that I was successful. If I am a private in the Polish army then it means I failed so the army got hold of me. The exams were not complete, i.e. I did not achieve the objective of taking exams which is passing them.

A friend of mine (a psychology student) would say jokingly:

Piec razy zdawalem na psychologie (I took entrance exams into psychology 5 times)
Za kazdym razem sie dostalem. (I passed each time)

1st sentence is imperfective and, because the action hapened 5 times it would appear that, 4 of the 5 times he failed. He must have passed the fifth time since he was a student at the time of the conversation.
2nd sentence is a little of a shock. He passed each time. Only that he was kicked out 4 times. The point is that before the 2nd sentence 4 incidents are assumed to be incomplete, imperfective. The second sentence changes that and we know that each of the attempts were actually successful and thus complete.

- Czy ty w ogole czytales Biblie? (Did you even read the Bible?. Here I am assuming a conversation between two people. One says something stupid and the other expresses his doubt wether the other person actually has read the Bible. All this despite the fact that "czytales" is imperfective. The person's answer would be also imperfective i.e. Oczywiscie, ze czytalem but that would mean that the act of reading was complete and the respondent is ready for further discussion.)

Z_darius,

Gosh! Thanks a lot for all the text!!! :))))))))))))))))) I really understood it and everything is clearer now :D Really thank you for your time :)

Dziękuję :)

No, this is not true because perfective verbs can be used relating to the future tense only the present tense does not allow their usage.

Michal, you have little understanding of perfective aspect, not tense, which in Polish is called "aspekt dokonany". Study what you yap about before you ridicule yourself, yet again.

Ja powiem for instance, is I will tell and this is a future action so how can a perfective verb only cover past completed actions?

Who said perfective verb only cover past completed actions?
Can you quote?

Where does it say they have to be in the past?

Dziękuję za pomóc!!! Wiki-site jest wspaniały.

Za pomoc, the verb to help is pomóc. I know and agree, it is somewhat confusing at times!

Dzięki, Mihału!

Nie ma za co!

if someone is interested, the correct form of Michał in Vocative case (Wołacz) is Michale (I guess "h" instead of "ch" was a typo)

Dzięki, Michale!

no, I wouldn't put it that way. I really can't tell you any rule, but I don't think the auxiliary verb ("musieć" or other) has an influence on the infinitive verb aspect. Maybe someone with fresh linguistic knowledge (mine is very rusty) can explain it better. Just stick to the comments/examples of z_darius in this thread.

But if you want to read my rambling, here are another examples to illustrate how it depends on the context, not on the grammar.

I had to exercise my back muscles - Musiałem/musiałam ćwiczyć mięśnie grzbietu - imperfective.
Muszę pisać ręcznie, ponieważ przez komputer robię coraz więcej błędów. - I have to write by hand, because computer-typing makes me commit more and more spelling errors. - imperfective.

in the second example "pisać" refers to repetitve actions, hence the imperfective form, the same goes for the first sentence (if something repeats itself, it's logically still incomplete, imperfective, from the narrative point of view even though you may refer to a period in the past, so gramatically it's finished - like in the first example, with the past tense).

I remember, studying languages many years ago, that one method was useful to me to learn (or at least to comprehend) the correct use of tenses in English, German, Italian etc. - you have to project two axles - one is referred to the time - hence the decision on using past, present, future tenses, the other axle is more connected with logic, which is different in every language, placing the narrator in a specific point respectively to the action the verb describes. That's why the context is usually so important.

Musiałem wtedy coś brać, bo nie pamiętam ani bólu, ani cierpienia. - I must have been doing some drugs then, because I can't remember the pain and the suffering. - You place yourself, as the narrator, in the middle of that period, when you were doing drugs. (also repetitive)
Musiałem wtedy coś wziąć, bo nie pamiętam ani bólu, ani cierpienia. I must have taken some drugs/pills then, because I can't remember the pain and the suffering. - You place yourself, as the narrator, after one specific event, when you took some drugs/pills.
I'm not sure if my English translations gives correctly the meaning, but I felt that I have to use 2 different expressions (do drugs/take drugs) in English, because here comes another factor in the mix: some actions are naturally perfective or imperfective (like "do drugs"), so the verbs that describe those actions tend to be mostly used in one specific aspect (like in my first example, "Musiałem/musiałam ćwiczyć mięśnie grzbietu" - exercising your muscles is a process, lasting in time, requiring repetitions, so it naturally comes with an imperfective verb, the end result of those exercises can be a well developped muscle, so to describe this effect you'd have to use perfective verb: Rozwinąłem silny biceps - I've developped a strong biceps brachii).

No, Krzysztof! Coraz więcej uczę się tego języka.

Ślicznie dziękuję.

Why on God's name have simple points of Polish grammar got to be made so complicated? How does this help beginners who want to come to terms with the language making look like a Phd in chemistry?

Michałe!

For what it's worth, I rather enjoy Krzysztof and Iwonka (past tense, in this case)'s detailed linguistic explanations.