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Conjugation of verb to be in Polish

Polish

asked by
Marco
published
over 4 years ago
How to conjugate verb to be in the Polish language? Also, how to pronounce it?
1 answer
answered by
Pawel
published
over 4 years ago

Thanks for your question. The infinitive form of to be in Polish language is być, so you can use it in sentences like: Lubię być w pracy na czasI like to be at work in time or Lepiej jest mieć czy być? Is it better to have or to be?

In the table below you will find all the form for 3 different tenses: present, past and future. Before we start, you need to remember that when conjugating verb to be in Polish in real life situations, people do not use personal pronouns. It is as if Poles would say: am, are, is instead of I am, you are and he is.

These shorter forms in spoken Polish are more common although it is not a mistake to use longer forms.

To give you more information, I will present below longer forms but remember both longer and shorter forms are correct and shorter ones are as if not more common.

In the brackets you will find gramatical gender information: (m) for masculin, (f) for feminin and (n) for neutral gramatical gender.

Present tense

Polish Sound English
ja jestemI am
ty jesteśyou are
on jest (m)he is
ona jest (f)she is
ono jest (n)it is
my jesteśmywe are
wy jesteścieyou are
oni są (m)they are
one są (f/n)they are

Future tense

Polish Sound English
ja będęI will be
ty będzieszyou will be
on będzie (m)he will be
ona będzie (f)she will be
ono będzie (n)it will be
my będziemywe will be
wy będziecieyou will be
oni będą (m)they will be
one będą (f/n)they will be

Past tense

Polish Sound English
ja byłem (m)I was
ja byłam (f)I was
ty byłeś (m)you were
ty byłaś (f)you were
on był (m)he was
ona była (f)she was
ono było (n)it was
my byliśmy (m)we were
my byłyśmy (f)we were
wy byliście (m)you were
wy byłyście (f)you were
oni byli (m)they were
one były (f/n)they were

I hope this doesn't look too intimidating, Polish is certainly more complicated than English. Please let me know if you have any question regarding other Polish verbs..

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