What you know so far [Toggle]
If there is one thing you can say about the past tense it's that it is well behaved! There are common patterns to almost every verb
"Witam! Witam. Dzień dobry albo Dobry Wieczór! No to dobrze. Dalej". So we've got a whole bunch of verbs and vocab under our belts but we've only really been talking in the present tense. Now we'll cover how to express what has been.
Do you remember how to say "I have"
 English |  Polish |
|---|---|
| I have |
Well in the past tense we have:
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| I had | |
| I had a black car |
"Samochód" might not seem like the easiet word to learn but easier to remember if you know where it comes from. 'Samo' has it's roots in:
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| Alone | |
| he/it is alone | |
| she is alone |
"chód" is a way to say "walk" when we talk about the way someone walks.
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| Walk |
Yes - a "Samochód" is something that "walks alone" - i.e. "it walks by itself!"
Bit of a detour there but it might help you remember "Samochód" and you've picked up a couple of useful words along the way.
Adjectives (like "czarny") and nouns (like "samochód") all act the same way as they did in the present tense with our three cases:
So how would you say:
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| I had an old house | |
| I had a white bag | |
| I had a bad password |
We keep the 'sh' type ending we see for most verbs in the present tense but this time we achieve it by using 'ś' and listen out for a slight difference depending on who you are talking to:
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| Robert, you had a bad day | |
| Magda, you had a bad day |
Yes, in the past tense the verb is getting affected by the gender of the person you are talking to. That all common 'a' is used when you are talking to a female.
So how would you say:
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| Robert, you had a good night | |
| Magda, you had a small hotel | |
| Eva, you had a white wine |
Also, just like in the present tense, the 'he' form is the shortest but, as with the 'you' form the gender of who we are talking about makes a difference.
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| Robert had a big ego | |
| Magda had a big ego |
Yes, basically "Meow" or "Meowa" - cat talk! Again that 'a' added if we are talking about a female.
Right but ... "Wielkie"? Wasn't "duże" the word for big. Yes but "Wielkie" is used to express big when we mean "grandness" or "greatness" and egos are always "grand!". "Wielkie", as an adjective, is an exception when it comes to endings.
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| It's a grand theater | |
| I like Great Britain |
As you see it ends 'i' for masculine nouns ("teatr"), 'a' - so as usual - for feminine nouns ("Wielka Brytania") but 'ie' for neuter nouns ("ego"). So if you knew "Plan" in English is "Plan" in Polish how would you say:
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| He had a big (grand) plan | |
| He had a good operation | |
| She had a small password |
Now there is such as thing as "it had" but we have to think about how to use it correctly. If we are talking about a noun (like "komputer") then we use the gender of the noun to decide which way to say "Had":
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| The computer had a virus |
But if we were talking about something that wasn't really a noun, say a the status of a relationship between two people, we would use the 'it' form.
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| It had a problem |
And here we see that familiar 'o' ending that is associated with neuter. You won't here the 'it' form that often but it's good to be aware of it so when it comes up you'll remember where it's from/
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| We had a big plan but now we have nothing |
Did you spot the double negative? Absolutely fine in Polish, in fact you have to use it!
Now let's have a proper look at "Mieliśmy" compared to the present tense "Mamy".
This 'we' format will appear in other past tense verbs as well so it's good to get to know it. In my mind I imagine "mamy" being pushed back into the past, squashing the 'a' until it splits into 'ie' and squeezing the line off the 'l'. And the word "squashing" has that 'sh' sound in it as a reminder of the 'sh' sound we need to include.
That's quite a lot of changes to remember but once you have one verb lodged in your head you can rest easy that most other verbs follow the same rule in the 'we (past tense)' form.
Overall then we have our endings for all the major past tense forms so anytime we get another verb in any form we can think out the endings. So if we get:
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| I wanted more |
Can you think out the other forms by following the rules from "to have"?
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| he/it wanted more | |
| She wanted more | |
| We wanted more | |
| Robert, you wanted more | |
| Magda, you wanted more | |
| Magda, why did you want more? | |
| Robert, why didn't you want more? |
Excellent!
Now it probably hasn't escaped you that these rhym very nicely.
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| I wanted, I had |
Which is a great way to remember the two verbs.
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| You wanted, you had (to a male) | |
| You wanted, you had (to a female) | |
| He wanted, he had | |
| She wanted, She had | |
| We wanted, we had |
"No to Dobrze! Teraz razem:"
But just before we do we need to cover the way a sentence like "I wanted a red car but I had a black one" is expressed in Polish. Basically it's shortened so as only to hold the essential words: "I wanted red car but I had black".
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| I wanted a red car but I had a black one | |
| I wanted a big sofa but I had a small one | |
| I wanted a white wine but I had a red one |
Past tense verbs get their negative exactly the same as present tense verbs - we just stick a "Nie" in front - but we also slip into the "Nie masz/lubisz/mówisz" case because if you didn't want it, we assume you didn't get it and so it was missing!.
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| Robert, you didn't want this product? | |
| Magda, you didn't want to go | |
| I didn't want to go to the theatre | |
| I didn't want to go to there | |
| He didn't want a cash machine, he wanted a bank | |
| We didn't want white wine, we wanted red |
Creating questions like "What did you have?" are also super simple. You just add "What" in front of "you had" but remember which version of what!:
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| Robert, what did you have? | |
| What didn't you have (it/them)? | |
| Magda, what did you want? | |
| Magda, what didn't you want? |
Also very straightforward - we just add "why" in front of the statement to get the question:
| English | Polish |
|---|---|
| Magda, why did you have a car? | |
| Magda, why didn't you have a telephone? | |
| Robert, why did you want to go? | |
| Robert, Why didn't you want to go? |