The Polish tenses
When something happens and how it is seen — finished, in progress, already done before: that is the question every tense answers. Here are all the topics about it, each with its own page and its own exercises.
All 10 topics on tense and time
A1Three present-tense patterns: czytam, robię, piszęThe first two forms — “I” and “you” — show which pattern a verb follows.A1The a-conjugation: czytam, czytaszThe easiest pattern: -am, -asz, -a, -amy, -acie, -ają go onto the stem.A1The i-conjugation: robię, robisz-ę for “I”, -isz or -ysz for “you” — and often a different sound before the -ę.A1The e-conjugation: piszę, piszesz, pracuję-ę for “I”, -esz for “you” — and with -ować → -uję the biggest group of all.A1Irregular: mam, chcę, jem, wiem, mogęFive verbs you need every day and learn one by one: have, want, eat, know, can.A2Forming the past: czytałem, czytałamThe infinitive without -ć, then -ł- and an ending for person and gender.A2Byli or były: the plural in the pastIf a man is in the group, it is byli — otherwise były, for children, animals and things as well.A2Czytałam or przeczytałam: aspect in the pastThe imperfective tells what you were busy with, the perfective what came of it.B1Gdzieś był? The movable personal endingThe ending -em, -eś, -śmy, -ście can move from the verb to a word further forward.A2The future with będę: będę czytać, będę czytałbędę is “I will be”: on its own for “to be”, with an imperfective verb for everything else.
Practise the tenses
Exercises from every topic on tense and time, mixed together. That is exactly the hard part: almost anyone can build a form when it says next to it which one is meant.