Past tense of imperfective verbs: pracowałem, kupiłeś, robił

What this is: Polish past tense changes with gender

In Polish, the past tense form tells you who did something (person) and also the gender of the speaker (or the group).

• ja / ty / my / wy: choose a form that matches your gender (or your group’s gender).
• on / ona / ono: choose a form that matches the subject.
• oni / one: choose oni for male/mixed groups, one for all-female groups (and for non-male-person groups).

Step 1: Build the past tense stem (the easy part)

Start from the infinitive (dictionary form) and cut off -ć.

Then you add the personal ending that also encodes gender (see next step).

Step 2: Choose the ending (person + gender)

Think in two decisions:

1. Who? (I / you / he / we / you-pl / they)
2. Which gender? (male / female / neuter / group)

The #1 confusion: “Pan/Pani” and past tense

Pan (sir) and Pani (madam) behave like he and she in past tense (3rd person).

• Pan wczoraj pracował. (The gentleman worked yesterday.)
• Pani wczoraj pracowała. (The lady worked yesterday.)

Even though you are talking to the person, the grammar form is 3rd person.

How to talk about a mixed group (important for work situations)

• If a group includes at least one man → use oni and the ending -li.

  Oni pracowa. (They worked.)

• If it’s an all-female group → use one and the ending -ły.

  One pracowa[ły]. (They worked.)