Polish · A1–A2 · Grammar
Polish verb aspect: Czytać or przeczytać?
Use czytać to talk about reading as an activity and przeczytać to present the reading as completed. Czytałam książkę tells you what I was doing; Przeczytałam książkę says I finished reading it. Compare what each sentence tells you about the end of the activity before learning the pair as a pair.
Library date
Ask what happened to the book
Czytałam tę książkę w pociągu means I was reading this book on the train, said by a woman. It leaves completion open. Przeczytałam tę książkę w pociągu means I read the whole book on the train. A man would use czytałem and przeczytałem.
Compare plans for tomorrow
Jutro będę czytać means Tomorrow I’ll be reading. Jutro przeczytam ten rozdział means Tomorrow I’ll read this chapter through. The perfective form przeczytam looks similar to a present-tense form but refers to a future result in this context.
Learn pairs with a particular outcome
Robić / zrobić is another useful pair: Co robisz? (What are you doing?) and Co zrobisz jutro? (What will you do tomorrow?). Many aspect pairs use a prefix, but prefixes can also change the meaning and not all pairs use one. Save a sentence with each verb instead of guessing a perfective from the spelling.