Czytać – To read or not to read?

Posted by: Katarzyna

Czytać translated is Polish for to read. I had a long conversation with one of my family members, and they pointed out how this word was simple, yet a very effective learning tool when learning the Polish language. In fact, you can use this to conjugate many verbs ending in -ać. Now I did say many, NOT ALL. As with every rule, there are exceptions. However, this one gives you a great basis, because there are several verbs that have the  -ać ending.

This is an imperfective aspect verb, meaning that the action is one that is continuous or incomplete and has no known end. It can be conjugated in past, present and future tenses. So we’ll start with the present tense. Let’s conjugate the verb czytać:

Singular, 1st person   czytam (I am reading)
Singular, 2nd person   czytasz (You are reading)
Singular, 3rd person   czyta (He/she/it is reading)

Plural, 1st person   czytamy (We are reading)
Plural, 2nd person   czytacie (You are reading)
Plural, 3rd person   czytają (They are reading)

Now for the past tense, things get a little interesting. When the verb is conjugated, the ending is based on the gender of the noun that is performing the action.

Singular, 1st person male   czytałem (I read)
Singular, 1st person female czytałam (I read)
Singular, 2nd person male    czytałeś (You read)
Singular, 2nd person female    czytałaś (You read)
Singular, 3rd person male   czytał (He read)
Singular, 3nd person female   czytała (She read)
Singular, 3nd person neuter   czytało (It read)

Plural, 1st person male   czytaliśmy (We read)
Plural, 1st person female, neuter or non-personal   czytałyśmy (We read)
Plural, 2nd person male   czytaliście (You read)
Plural, 2nd personal female, neuter or non-personal   czytałyście (You read)
Plural, 2nd personal male   czytali (They read)
Plural, 2nd personal female, neuter or non-personal   czytały (They read)

And last but not least, we’ll go over the future tense of the verb:

Singular, 1st person male   będę czytał (I will read)
Singular, 1st person female będę czytała (I will read)
Singular, 2nd person male    będziesz czytał (You will read)
Singular, 2nd person female    będziesz czytała (You will read)
Singular, 3rd person male   będzie czytał (He will read)
Singular, 3nd person female   będzie czytała (She will read)
Singular, 3nd person neuter   będzie czytało (It will read)

Plural, 1st person male   będziemy czytali (We will read)
Plural, 1st person female, neuter or non-personal   będziemy czytały (We will read)
Plural, 2nd person male   będziecie czytali (You will read)
Plural, 2nd personal female, neuter or non-personal   będziecie czytały (You will read)
Plural, 2nd personal male   będą czytali (They will read)
Plural, 2nd personal female, neuter or non-personal   będą czytały (They will read)

* Side note, the future tense can also be będę czytać, będziesz czytać, będzie czytać, etc. Essentially, this is the conjugated form of być (to be) plus the infinitive czytać.

There it is; to read conjugated in the past, present and future tenses. When I started learning to read and write, it helped me to take the Polish conjugation and write them over and over. Maybe flash cards will work for you. Whatever method works for you, this is a great verb to start with and to learn the endings. I mentioned early on that there were several verbs that were conjugated like this one. A few more to get started with are:

kochać (to love)
witać (to greet)
śpiewać (to sing)
znać (to know)
pamiętać (to remember)
odwiedzać (to visit someone)
zwiedzać (to visit a place)

Lastly, I mentioned there were some that looked like they may be conjugated like this verb but are not. So as not to confuse the issue, I won’t get into them, however, a couple examples to look out for are the verbs spać (to sleep) and stać (to stand). We’ll go over these in another lesson. And speaking of which, please let us know what you do to help yourself learn Polish verb conjugations. Your little trick may help someone else out there struggling.

Do następnego czytania…

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Posted by: Katarzyna

Tags: 3rd person, conjugate, dziesz, future tenses, Grammar, imperfective, imperfective aspect, neuter, person, person male, Polish Language, present tense, She, Vocabulary