# Gerund



## 涼宮

Good evening everyone 

I have a huge doubt about several contexts_ including_ the same subject, so I am not sure whether I should split it up or not.

As far as I know in Polish you do not have any specific way to form the gerund except for some suffixes I saw, which are not commoly used. I consider the gerund an extremely useful tense, and I just do not get used to the idea of not using it in some languages. 

In Polish in the following contexts how would you translate them? Do you normally leave the verb in infinitive, you use some kind of auxiliary, reflexive form or imperfective aspect for any thing involved with the gerund?

Contexts:

1) Can I lose weight *by* *doing* this?

2) I'm impressed, you speak 12 languages *including* your mother tongue.

3) *Depending* on the circumstances we might not be able to survive.

4) There are five rivers *encircling* Hades.

5) *Having* said that, you cannot expect to be taken seriously.

6) But, *doing* that will not resolve anything!

7) There are many people *talking* about you.


Thank you in Advance for your help on this


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## Tazzler

Polish has a set of adjectival and adverbial participles. Adjectival participles end in "c" plus the regular adjective endings and the present adverbial participle ends in "c". Both these are based on the third person singular of the verb in the present tense. The past adverbial participle ends in "wszy" and is based on the third person singular masculine past of the verb. Examples 2 and 3 would probably require an alternate translation, I think, and example 6 would use the infinitive (I think ). For example, "depending on" would be "w zależności od + genitive" which is of course literally "in dependence on" and "including" would be "łącznie z + instrumental". 

Examples:

pisząc-> while writing (escribiendo)
piszący-> which write(s) (que escribe(n))
napisawszy-> having written (habiendo escrito)

From one learner to another, I hope this helps!


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## majlo

First of all, in English the present participle and the gerund have the same form, that is -ing, which is not the case in Polish. In Polish, the gerund (Lat. gerundium) or _rzeczownik odsłowny_ takes the suffix _-nie_. In your examples, 涼宮, there are both participles and gerunds. Tazzler has pretty much explained the participles, so that just leaves the gerundium. Like I said it takes the suffix -nie:

1) Can I lose weight by doing this? - _Czy mogę schudnąć poprzez *robienie* tego?
6) But, doing that will not resolve anything! - Ale *robienie* tego niczego nie rozwiąże.

More examples:

smoke - palić - palenie
frighten - straszyć - straszenie
dig - kopać - kopanie

etc.

Hope that helps. 

P.S. Gerund is not a tense._


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## BezierCurve

My 2 cents: gerund forms of nouns ending in -nie are always of neuter gender and declinate as any other noun of that type (like German forms ending in -_ung_ are treated as female, if that helps). 

Also, for the past adverbial participle you need the perfective aspect of a verb, so having done = _z_robi_wszy (zrobić _being the perfective aspect for _robić_). At the same time the present adverbial participle always uses the imperfective aspect.

So, to answer your original question:


*the action of doing sth = robienie czegoś* (< gerund, declinates as any neuter noun)

*having done sth = zrobiwszy coś* (< perfective aspect of the verb, past adverbial part., no inflection)

*doing sth = robiąc coś*, like in: 
Knowing his attitude you can expect problems. = Znaj_ąc_ jego stosunek możesz spodziewać się problemów. (< imperfective aspect, present adverbial part., no inflection)

*sb doing sth = ktoś robiący coś*, like in:
All passengers travelling to Madrid were on time. = Wszyscy pasażerowie podróżuj_ący_ do Madrytu przybyli na czas. (< imperfective aspect, adjectival participle, follows usual adjective declension).


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## 涼宮

Thank you very much all of you!  I thougt it would be a little more complicated, though. So, in the second sentence, the part ''including your mother tongue'' would take the -nie suffix? 

And finally 2 more questions, Do you add the suffix after conjugating the verb agreeing with the personal pronoun? And The -nie suffix is commonly used?

Thank you again!


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## Ben Jamin

majlo said:


> 1) Can I lose weight by doing this? - _Czy mogę schudnąć poprzez *robienie* tego?_


It is maybe worth to note that that it is rather unlikely that anybody should use the above quoted expression. It is perfectly grammatical and stylistically correct, but quite unidiomatic. Most people would say: 
_Czy mogę schudnąć *robiąc to*?_
The English gerund should not be translated by default by the Polish gerund ending with -nie, as the usage requires very often other constructions.


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## majlo

It's definitely worth noting; I should've made that clear myself. I just wanted to emphasize the verb form, though.

By BenJamin
"The English gerund should not be translated by default by the Polish gerund ending with -nie, as the usage requires very often other constructions."

Any details?


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## Thomas1

I think it is to say that the gerund in English has different functions which often don't correspond to (idiomatic) functions of Polish verbal nouns. The sentence: _Czy mogę schudnąć poprzez *robienie* tego? _is one such example. Although technically fine, it sounds rather clunky. Ben Jamin's solution fits better Polish standards: we are more happy to use the present participle to express the way to do something. I've just found this sentence the Internet:  "_Schudnac poprzez_ picie  wody???" It sounds better than 'poprzez robienie tego' to me.


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## BezierCurve

> And finally 2 more questions, Do you add the suffix after conjugating the verb agreeing with the personal pronoun? And The -nie suffix is commonly used?


 
No, that verb part in gerund does not undergo any conjugation. You stick -nie to the stem (however, sometimes modifying it a bit). Let's take infinitives:

robi-ć > robi-enie
rozumie-ć > rozumie-nie
zda-ć > zda-nie

But:

ko_sić_ > ko_szenie_
ła_zić_ > ła_żenie_
wzm_óc_ > wzm_ożenie_

and more.

EDIT: There's also a group of verbs, of which infinitives end with -ąć. They are a sort of exception here, as the gerund looks a bit different (-cie):

wziąć > wzięcie
giąć > gięcie
wsunąć > wsunięcie

etc.

and all verbs ending with -ejść (wejść, zejść, obejść etc.): 

wejść > wejście 

As for the popularity of -nie/-cie forms - yes, they are used every now and then. However, if there's another noun denoting similar action (which is usually shorter), people tend to use that instead, for example:

pomoc (help) will often replace pomaganie (imperf.)/pomożenie (perf.) (helping).


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## Ben Jamin

majlo said:


> It's definitely worth noting; I should've made that clear myself. I just wanted to emphasize the verb form, though.
> 
> By BenJamin
> "The English gerund should not be translated by default by the Polish gerund ending with -nie, as the usage requires very often other constructions."
> 
> Any details?


 Well, the first example is the one mentioned in my post:
by doing -> przez robienie (literal translation: gerund + preposition) -> robiąc to (typical equivalent: present participle).
I will supply more later.


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## majlo

OK, I now know what you mean. I missed your point before.


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## 涼宮

Thank you all of you


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