# -ować verbs that do not conjugate like pracować (e.g. zachować)



## bruno321

Hi there. I'm new to this forum. I've been self-learning Polish for a year and a half now, but it's the first time I stumble upon this forum.

I have a question. When I started learning about verbs, perhaps the first easy family to conjugate (in the present tense) that I learned was the -ować ones like pracować: pracuję, pracuje, pracują.

Now I'm reading a text and I stumble upon "zachowam". Turns out the verb zachować is conjugated like zachowam, zachowa, zachowają! i.e. like mieć, for example.

Is there any name for this kind of "fake ować verbs", and perhaps even a list of common verbs conjugated thusly?

Thanks!


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## ornityna

It is because this verb has no present tense. The conjugation:

1. zachowam
2. zachowasz
3. zachowa

is in the future tense. _Zachowywać_ is the corresponding verb in the impefective aspect, which conjugates _zachowuję, zachowujesz, zachowuje_.


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## bruno321

I see. Let me make a guess: any perfective verb ending in ować conjugates like zachować. Is this a common thing, perfective verbs ending in ować?


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## Szkot

There is an imperfective verb chować with -am, asz.  Usually if you remove the -ować ending you are left with a meaningful root like prac- or interes-.  In the case of chować you would be left with just ch-, which doesn't mean much.

There are also some -ywać verbs such as pływać which have -am, -asz endings.


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## jasio

Verb conjugation in Polish is very complex, especially that there are phenomenons which are not present in Western languages, and consequently are very difficult to understand for foreigners. When I was looking for information for you, I encountered information that there are four conjugations and 11 verb declension patterns (Gramatyka języka polskiego – Wikipedia, wolna encyklopedia, Gramatyka języka polskiego – Wikipedia, wolna encyklopedia - although perhaps this book would be more useful for you: http://www.skwierzyna.net/polishgrammar.pdf).

The most important thing you will probably need to learn - as it may be *very* misleading - is that except for regular declension factors, including tense, person or number, in Polish (actually, in all Slavic languages) there is also an *aspect* of the verb which plays the key role. There are many different aspects, but the most basic and fundamental distinction is between *perfective* and *imperfective* verbs. Most verbs obligatory fit into one of these two categories, and almost universally they have a counterpart of precisely the same meaning, but in the other category (an aspectual pair). As always in the natural languages, there is a number of exceptions and special cases, but this is the basic rule. The difficult part is that the aspect is a lexical category, and it depends on the meaning of the word rather than on its form, although there are some statistical trends which can be observed.

Basically, the *perfective verbs* describe activities which are perceived as a whole - it may be a one-time action, an activity which was/will be completed and we're discussing its results, etc. They are roughly equivalent to preterite indefinido or preterite perfecto in Spanish, and when used with regards to the future - futuro perfecto. Please note that this is NOT a 100% equivalence though. On the other hand, the *imperfective verbs* are used for actions which are perceived as not completed, taking some time, repeated, etc. (actually, in some of these situations they may have somewhat different forms, but they are still considered imperfective). They are roughly equivalent to preterite imperfecto or futuro imperfecto - though again, it's not a 100% equivalence. 

The tough part: for almost every English or a Spanish verb you have to learn *two verbs in Polish*. The key difficulty: it would be illogical to discuss a *completed action* in the *present tense*. With regards to the present moment, the activity is either already completed (ie. it already happened in the past = perfective, or took some time in the past = imperfective), it may be ongoing (obligatory imperfective) or it may be planned to be worked on (imperfective) or to be completed (perfective) in the future. The basic consequence is that the *present tense patterns* used with *perfective verbs* have the *future* meaning, ie. effectively it's a simple future tense. On the other hand, *future *tense of *imperfective verbs* is formed as a *compound future* - and since the perfective verbs already have the future tense (simple future), they never form the compound future which would be redundant. This connection is so strong that for the native speaker probably the easiest way to recognise if the verb is perfective or imperfective is to create the 'present tense form' of the verb and check if it indeed has the present meaning (= imperfective verb) or it has the future meaning (= perfective verb). 

Returning to your examples:

"pracować" (to work) is an *imperfective* verb, hence "pracuję" has the present tense meaning (I work / I am working).
"zachować" (to keep, to preserve) is a *perfective* verb, hence "zachowam" despite its present tense suffix (like in "chować -> chowam"), actually is the future tense (I will keep, I will preserve). 

"zachowywać" (to keep, to preserve) is an *imperfective* verb, hence "zachowuję" has the present tense meaning (I preserve / I am preserving, I keep / I am keeping)

BTW - I've also found Tables of Conjugation of nearly 500 Polish Verbs and Catalog - Polish conjugation search - Po Polsku which may help you conjugate the verbs.


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## bruno321

Thanks for the summary and thanks for the links, they'll be useful. I'm well aware of the grammar complications that you describe, though. I just thought that all ować verbs were imperfective.

The serious grammar books I've used are: Dana Bielec's Basic and Intermediate Polish (went through both of them, did all the exercises), and Iwona Sadowska's "Polish: a comprehensive grammar" (plus some other more basic ressources when I was just starting).


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## jasio

bruno321 said:


> Thanks for the summary and thanks for the links, they'll be useful. I'm well aware of the grammar complications that you describe, though. I just thought that all ować verbs were imperfective.


No, it's not the case. Actually, I doubt if there are any 100-percent certain strucuture-based methods of distinguishing perfective and imperfective verbs. Perhaps "-ywać" (which turns some regular imperfective verbs into repetitive (=imperfective), and some perfective verbs into imperfective) could be an example - though I am not sure if there aren't any exceptions.


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## lukis421

bruno321 said:


> Thanks for the summary and thanks for the links, they'll be useful. I'm well aware of the grammar complications that you describe, though. I just thought that all ować verbs were imperfective.
> 
> The serious grammar books I've used are: Dana Bielec's Basic and Intermediate Polish (went through both of them, did all the exercises), and Iwona Sadowska's "Polish: a comprehensive grammar" (plus some other more basic ressources when I was just starting).



I'm a little bit late with the reply but maybe I'll add something that may be helpful for you. You can almost always derive a perfective verb from an imperfective one by simply adding a prefix. The verb you mentioned, pracować, although as you said is very imperfective, can be turned into: wypracować, przepracować, odpracować, zapracować etc. and all of these are perfective and don't exist in the present tense. The verb zachować is the perfective form of the verb zachowywać, so you can say: zachowuję paragony by kontrolować swoje wydatki (I collect all the receipts to control my spending) or zachowam paragon (I'll keep the receipt). I hope that was helpful


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