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[Intro]
Co dzisiaj zrobisz?
Dzisiaj przeczytam dwie książki, obejrzę film i pójdę popływać.
Cześć! Hello. My name is Przemek and this is Podcast polski. Usually, episodes of this podcast are recorded entirely in Polish to help people practice listening comprehension and to let them have a contact with a living language.
In this episode we are talking about grammar and I decided to record it in English.
So, without further ado, let’s begin!
In the previous video we were talking about the Compound Future Tense in Polish. If you haven’t watched it yet, click the button that has appeared on the screen.
Today we will be talking about the Simple Future Tense. The most important thing to remember is: Simple Future is used with perfective verbs.
The construction of this tense is really easy if you know how to conjugate Polish verbs in the Present Tense. Present? Yes, you heard well. The perfective verbs conjugated in Simple Future take endings identical to the Present Tense. In some cases, they look exactly like Present Tense with a prefix added!
Let’s look at the verb “czytać” and its perfective counterpart “przeczytać”.
Do you see the pattern here? If we deleted the prefix, we would receive the exact Present Tense forms!
Let’s take the verb “robić” and “zrobić".
Now let’s look in more detail at how we create a perfective form from an imperfective verb. There are roughly three methods to do it.
Method no. 1
a prefix is added to the basic verb, e.g.
malować - na-malować
czytać - prze-czytać
Method no. 2
transformation or reduction in stem, e.g.kupować - kupić
zapraszać - zaprosić
Method no. 3
different form, e.g.oglądać - obejrzeć
brać - wziąć
The last one is the most difficult because in fact you have to learn two verbs that convey the same meaning. Now let’s look at how this works in practice:
Method no. 1
malować - namalować
- malować is an imperfective form which concentrates on the process of doing something,
- namalować is its perfective counterpart focusing on the outcome of the action.
When I say:
Dzisiaj cały dzień maluję obrazy.
I mean that today, the whole day long I am painting some paintings. I am not interested in the outcome. I may finish doing the painting or not. It’s not important.
But when I say:
Dzisiaj namaluję dwa obrazy.
I mean that today I will paint two paintings and I will finish the work. I will get the paintings done.
The difficult part is that there is no uniform prefix to make a verb perfective. It can be for example:
- wy- pić → wypić
- po- jechać - pojechać
- na- malować - namalować
- za- grać - zagrać
- z- jeść - zjeść
There are a lot more.
It’s incredibly difficult for non-native speakers to tell at first glance whether a verb they encounter is a perfective or imperfective. Or what prefix to add to make imperfective a perfective.
My advice is to look up in a dictionary, where the aspect of a specific verb is given. Advanced learners can usually distinguish both forms by details, like prefixes, suffixes.
Moreover, the majority of verbs take different prefixes to express different meanings. Let’s take the verb malować - to paint.
- When we add na-, we receive: namalować which means to paint, to finish painting.
For example: Dzisiaj namaluję jeden obraz.
- When we add za-, we receive: zamalować which means to paint over something, to cover something with a new layer of painting.
For example: Dzisiaj zamaluję tą plamę na ścianie.
- When we add prze-, we receive: przemalować which means to repaint, to paint something over.
For example: Dzisiaj przemaluję pokój dzieci.
How to deal with this profusion? My advice is: listen, listen and listen or read, read, and read. Your brain will finally get used to the wording.
Method no. 2
Let’s now move to method number 2. Here perfective forms are “modified” versions of imperfectives. For example: kupować - kupić, zapraszać - zaprosić
In this case, the future forms are not a “mirror” of the present ones, but they still retain the Present Tense endings. Let’s see:
As you see, the endings are the same as in the Present Tense.
Method no. 3
Let’s see how it works in method nr 3. Here imperfective and perfective verbs have totally different forms. For example: oglądać - obejrzeć, brać - wziąć.
Let’s conjugate “obejrzeć”.
Again, although the verb sounds different, the endings are the same as in the Present Tense.
Now when we know how to create the forms of the Future Simple Tense, let’s do some exercises. I will read a sentence in English, then I will make a pause for you to say it in Polish. I will give you a verb to use. Ready?
Today I will read the whole book. przeczytać Dzisiaj przeczytam całą książkę.
Tomorrow you will tidy up your room
posprzątać
Jutro posprzątasz swój pokój.
On Sunday Ania will go to the hairdresser.
pójść
W niedzielę Ania pójdzie do fryzjera.
Next year we will buy a new car.
kupić
W przyszłym roku kupimy nowy samochód.
You (plural) will play a concert in London next month.
zagrać
Zagracie koncert w Londynie w przyszłym miesiącu.
They will fly to Dubai next week.
polecieć
Oni polecą do Dubaju w przyszłym tygodniu.
This was all for this episode of Podcast polski. I hope you liked it. To help you work more on the Simple Future Tense, I prepared some exercises which you can download from the website.
Czas przyszły prosty - Ćwiczenia i odpowiedzi (plik PDF)
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That’s all for this episode. Thank you very much for watching and listening. Na razie!