# verbs, 1rst conjugation, 3rd conjugation, ać/eć



## 涼宮

Good afternoon 

Reviewing my notes I found something unclear, confusing. I have 2 patterns of conjugation:

First conjugation:

-ę
-esz
-e
-emy
-ecie
-ą

3d conjugation:

-am
-asz
-a
-amy
-acie
-ają

From where I learnt , the infinitive ends by ać in both of them (the 1rst also uses eć). My question is, How do I know when to conjugate a verb ended by ać with the first or 3rd conjugation? Is there any rule, pattern, etc? For instance the verb to write pisać, it uses the first conjugation, ę, esz, e, etc. not the 3rd one, when both rules say -ać.

Perhaps I misslearnt an important detail . 

Thank you very much in advance!


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## BezierCurve

I'm afraid there's no 100% rule and you won't be able to tell which group a verb belongs to just by the look of the infinitive. On the other hand I'm pretty sure that you will find that information beside each verb in most of dictionaries. 

There might exist some "rules" for specific infinitive endings, but you can also expect to have some nasty exceptions to each rule.

Let's wait and see if someone has a more useful tip though...


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## kknd

maybe perfectivness is the key (first though after testing „spać” vs. „sypiać” and „płynąć” cf. „pływać”; didn't checked any other); swan in his grammar courses gives clue to learn simple past of a verb to guess correct conjugation (don't remember exact rules; check links in the appropriate forum topic).


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## Ben Jamin

I doubt that there exists a Polish dictionary that gives you thr conjugation pattern for every verb. But you may use a web search engine for instance seek:  "ja pisz*" and you will get the answer. Once you got it, make notes in your own private dictionary.
By the way, I recall a verb certainly 'loved' by all foreign students of Spanish: *caber*. It knocks out most Polish verbs!


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## LilianaB

Do you mean saber?


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## 涼宮

Thank you all of you! Polish is  a lot of fun, no pattern many times 



Ben Jamin said:


> I doubt that there exists a Polish dictionary that gives you thr conjugation pattern for every verb. But you may use a web search engine for instance seek:  "ja pisz*" and you will get the answer. Once you got it, make notes in your own private dictionary.
> By the way, I recall a verb certainly 'loved' by all foreign students of Spanish: *caber*. It knocks out most Polish verbs!



Yes, because the change between qu and c is funny  yo quepo, but tú cabes, puede que él quepa, pero puede que él cupiera. Certainly funny.

Yesterday I acquired the big Oxford PWN Polish- English, English-Polish dictionary, 2 volumes, more than 2,000 pages, it's certainly big and has many many words, but it doesn't give the pattern for every verb as you already said.


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## Thomas1

Maybe this will interest you a little: the dictionary I have, _Słownik języka polskiego PWN_ © Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, intended for Polish native speakers, gives conjugational patterns of all verbs. In each verbal entry, there is a reference to a given conjugational group which you  can look up elsewhere in the dictionary. The same holds true for declensional patterns. You can have a look at it here (I think it could be an earlier version of the same dictionary).


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## jazyk

This site conjugates all verbs and decline all nouns that appear in its dictionary.


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## BezierCurve

... and this one will help you find the infinitive for more exotic forms (like adverbial or adjectival participles):

http://www.sjp.pl/


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## 涼宮

Thank you the 3 of you!  Those sites will help me a lot.


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## kknd

jazyk said:


> This site conjugates all verbs and decline all nouns that appear in its dictionary.



aforementioned swan emerges! ^^


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## perevoditel

If you like open projects, you can try polish wiktionary, most of words has also conjungation/declination there.


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## bibax

> Perhaps I misslearnt an important detail.


The important detail is that the Slavic verbs generally have two different stems: the present stem and the infinitive stem. The present indicative (as well as imperative) forms are derived from the present stem. The past participle (l-participle) as well as the infinitive itself are derived from the infinitive stem.
Sometimes the two stems look quite different (although they originally came from the same root). For example: *żenie* (present), *gnać* (infinitive) - (in Czech: žene and hnáti).

It is similar like in Latin. The Latin verbs have even three stems: present, perfect and supine (e.g. habeo, habui, habitum; deleo, delevi, deletum; moveo, movi, motum). You have to remember all three stems in order to conjugate the Latin verbs correctly.


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## BezierCurve

Indeed, although "gnać" is not a good example in Polish (gnać > pres.: gna - gnanie).


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## bibax

I think the form gna is quite new. In Czech we have no hná from hnáti, žene is the only possibility.

I wanted to illustrate that the two stems of the same verb can be quite different (cf. pisać, pisze; brać, bierze; etc.).


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## BezierCurve

Not sure when "gnać" changed its present form as the verb seems already a bit out-of-date, but *łgać* > *łże* still works as you'd expect it to (although it sounds archaic too).


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