Past Tense Conjugation in Polish
koniugacja czasu przeszłego
Conjugation patterns of Polish past tense verbs reflecting person, number, and grammatical gender.
Unlike the present tense, the past tense in Polish contains suffixes that signal the gender of the subject. In the singular, there are masculine (-łem, -łeś, -ł), feminine (-łam, -łaś, -ła), and neuter (-ło) forms. In the plural, the forms split into virile/masculine personal (-śmy, -ście, -li) and non-virile/other (-śmy, -ście, -ły). For example, "I read" is "czytałem" if the speaker is male, and "czytałam" if the speaker is female.
Examples
Wczoraj zrobiłem zakupy (Masc). / Wczoraj zrobiłam zakupy (Fem).
Yesterday I did the shopping.
Byliśmy w kinie (Virile). / Byłyśmy w kinie (Non-virile).
We were at the cinema.
Co robiłaś wczoraj wieczorem?
What were you doing yesterday evening? (to a female)
Related terms
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