(“We drove for five hours to get here.”) The perfective aspect (“He was walking slowly as he was talking on the phone.”)ĭlaczego jedziesz tak szybko? Mamy jeszcze dużo czasu. (“Why are you driving so fast? We’ve got plenty of time to spare.”)

The imperfective determinate verbs of motion iść and jechać are used to refer to one-time, continuous motion, often with a specific goal: Tom chodzi po lesie. (“Tom is walking in the forest.”)īędziesz jeździła konno? (“ Will you be riding a horse?”) The imperfective determinate aspect They are also used to talk about motion that doesn’t have a single specific direction – even if it only happens once: (“Julia used to go to the gym.”)ĭlaczego nigdy nie jeździsz do pracy autobusem? (“Why do you never go to work by bus?”) The imperfective indeterminate verbs of motion chodzić and jeździć are used to talk about habits or repetitive actions, as well as to generalize: So first, we’ll try to understand all individual grammatical aspects, and later we’ll take a look at how they behave in specific tenses (past, present, and future). Our goal is to view this complex topic from as many perspectives as possible. Now that we’ve laid down the basics, it’s time to back up the theory with specific examples. Determinate verbs refer to motion that happens only once, mostly with a specific direction.Indeterminate verbs describe motion that is done regularly, habitually, or without a specific direction.Imperfective verbs of motion differ from all other Polish verbs in that they have two sub-classes: One of the reasons why Polish verbs of motion are so challenging is that they add another layer to this already complex system. We know that they have a beginning, but we don’t know anything about the end. Imperfective verbs describe actions without any reference to their completion.In other words, actions that have clearly been completed in the past, or will be completed in the future. Perfective verbs describe actions that have a clearly defined beginning and end.Aspects: the basicsĪll Polish verbs belong to one of two classes: perfective or imperfective.

It doesn’t matter if you’re actually steering the vehicle (in which case it is translated as to drive or to ride) or just traveling as a passenger. Jechać means to go by vehicle. This includes all types of land transport (car, bike, train, skateboard, horse), but not water or air transport (plane, boat). Iść means simply to go on foot or to walk. This is because Polish has separate verbs for “going” depending on the means of transport used. Iść and jechać – by far the most used verbs of motion – are both translated as “to go”, but they mean quite different things. Later on, we’ll take a brief look at the remaining ones. To make things easier for you, we’ll start by discussing just the two most common verbs of motion. They have different meanings, but in terms of grammar, they all work pretty much the same. Polish has several commonly used verbs of motion. Let’s try to make them less scary by analyzing some of their defining features. And no wonder: to use them correctly, you need to pay attention to a bunch of distinctions that do not even exist in English. Many learners find Polish verbs of motion to be one of the most confusing aspects of the language.

Going home polish translator