Past tense of imperfective verbs: pracowałem, kupiłeś, robił

Past tense in Polish – what is special?

• In Polish, the past tense ending shows gender and number.
• You already know: pracować → pracowałem / pracowałam / pracowaliśmy…
• This explanation helps you see how to build the forms and what to watch out for.

Step 1 – The basic form: stem + personal ending

For regular verbs in the past, Polish uses:

• verb stem (infinitive without -ć)
• + a gender/number ending

Example with pracować (to work):

• Infinitive: pracować
• Remove -ć → stem: pracowa-
• Add ending: pracowa-łem, pracowa-łam, pracowa-liśmy…

Step 2 – Which ending? It depends on “who” and on gender

In the past tense you always ask yourself two questions:

1. Who is the subject? (I, you, he, we…)
2. Is it masculine, feminine, neuter, or plural?

Step 3 – How to decide: masculine vs non‑masculine plural

In plural you must always check the group:

• Masculine‑personal endings (‑li, ‑liśmy, ‑liście)
  • Use when there is at least one male person in the group.
  • Jan i Maria pracowali wczoraj. (Jan + Maria → group with a man → ‑li)
• Non‑masculine endings (‑ły, ‑łyśmy, ‑łyście)
  • Use when there are no men in the group (only women / objects / children / mixed objects).
  • Maria i Anna pracowały wczoraj. (only women → ‑ły)
  • Firmy pracowały intensywnie. (companies, things → ‑ły)

Polish looks at the real people in the group, not at the grammatical gender of the noun in the dictionary.

Step 4 – Verbs in ‑eć: the small vowel change (e → a)

Some very common verbs end in ‑eć:

• rozumieć (to understand)
• mieć (to have)
• chcieć (to want)
• myśleć (to think)
• leżeć (to lie, to be lying)
• woleć (to prefer)

In the past tense, in:

• singular (ja, ty, on/ona/ono)
• plural without a man (my/wy/one without men)

the vowel often changes: e → a.

In masculine‑personal plural (group with a man), you usually see ‑eli‑ instead of ‑ali‑:

• My rozumieliśmy projekt. (we, with at least one man)
• Oni chcieli iść do kina.

Step 5 – Typical “I / you / he / she” forms you will hear a lot

Memorise a few very frequent verbs in full past forms. They appear in almost every conversation.

Step 6 – Quick “algorithm” to build a past form

1. Find the infinitive
   • Example: kupować (to buy)
2. Remove ‑ć (and check if it is a ‑eć verb)
   • kupować → kupowa‑ (regular)
   • mieć → mie‑ but you know it will become miał‑
3. Decide who is the subject
   • I (man) / I (woman)?
   • we (with or without men)?
4. Choose the correct ending from the tables.
5. For ‑eć verbs, check if you need e → a (singular and plural without a man).

Example:

• “Yesterday we (two women) understood the contract.”
• Infinitive: rozumieć
• We, only women → non‑masculine plural: ending ‑łyśmy
• e → a: rozumia‑ + łyśmy → rozumiałyśmy
• Sentence: Wczoraj rozumiałyśmy umowę.

Step 7 – Typical mistakes and how to avoid them

• Mixing your own gender
  • If you are male: always use ‑łem, ‑łeś for “I/you”.
  • If you are female: always use ‑łam, ‑łaś.
  • Wczoraj pracowałam w biurze. – said by a man → should be pracowałem.
• Forgetting the group type in plural
  • My pracowałyśmy wczoraj. – if the group includes men → should be pracowaliśmy.
  • Only women: pracowałyśmy.
• Writing e instead of a in ‑eć verbs
  • Rozumiełam → rozumiałam.
  • Miełem czas → Miałem czas.

Step 8 – Self‑check: can you do this?

Answer these questions for yourself. If you can do them, you control the basics.

1. Can you look at a sentence and say which ending is used: ‑łem, ‑łam, ‑liśmy, ‑łyśmy etc. and why?
2. Can you form the correct past tense when you know:
   • the infinitive (pracować, dzwonić, rozumieć…)
   • who is the subject
   • whether the group has a man or not?
3. Can you produce both forms for yourself:
   • “Yesterday I worked at home.” – masc. and fem. versions?
4. Do you recognise the e → a change in verbs like mieć, chcieć, rozumieć in context?

If one of these points still feels uncertain, go back to the relevant table, say the forms aloud a few times, and then check with short sentences about your own yesterday.

What you should pay attention to from now on

• When you hear or read a past tense verb, immediately ask: who is it, and is it masculine / feminine / plural with men / plural without men?
• In your own speaking, always choose endings that match your real gender and the real composition of the group.
• Notice especially the forms of być, mieć, chcieć, rozumieć, robić, pracować – they appear very often in daily conversations.

With this, you can already tell clear, correct stories about yesterday in Polish and are ready to use the classroom time mainly for speaking practice.