Verbs

1. Tenses

Verbs in Polish are basically divided into perfective aspect, or aspekt dokonany (literally: accomplished), and imperfective aspect, or aspekt niedokonany. The vast majority of Polish verbs occur in such aspectual pairs. I'll explain the difference between these aspects in a moment, but for now I'd like to demonstrate how this affects tenses:

czas przeszły past	czas teraźniejszy present	czas przyszły future
imperfective	imperfective	imperfective
robiłem (m) / robiłam (f)	robię	będę robić or będę robił (m) / będę robiła (f)
perfective	perfective	perfective
zrobiłem (m) / zrobiłam (f)	—	zrobię

For simplicity, the table only contains forms for the first person singular (ja).

The imperfective aspect can be used to describe past, present and future events - specifically, events that are unfinished, repeated or lasting for a specific period.
And we use the perfective aspect only for the past or the future - completed, single or sudden events.

So, as you see, Polish ends up with two past tenses, one present tense, and two future tenses - and that's it.

The only major obstacle in learning the tenses is that verbs in the present and perfective future tenses (so, such as robię and zrobię) fall into 3 types of conjugation. Some distinguish 4 types, some even more, if we consider the variations in individual conjugation patterns as separate types - these concern alternations in the verb stem, which are the result of historical phonetic processes. But the much more important issue that requires our attention and determines the meaning of the verb form is the personal endings (ja robię, ty robisz etc.) - and that boils down to the 3 types of conjugation: -m,-sz, -ę,-esz, -ę,-isz/ysz.

The past tense, on the other hand, basically has only one conjugation pattern and the imperfective future tense is simply formed by combining the verb być in the future tense either with the infinitive (będę robić) or with the past tense form for the third person (będę robił / będę robiła - not intuitive, I know, but simple once you get familiar with past tense) - in contemporary Polish, both variants have the same meaning.

The patterns will be covered in the [ Conjugations ], [ Past Tense ] and [ Future Tense ] sections respectively (once they exist).

While we're still in this tenses overview section though, there's one thing to note about present tense, because despite its simplicity, it tends to cause problems. So, a common mistake is to try to convey the present continuous tense using the verb być:

I am writing - ~~jestem piszę~~ ✗

This is incorrect, keep in mind. In the present tense, it's sufficient to use just the one form, which is equivalent to both the present continuous and present simple:

I am writing - [ja] piszę ✓
I write - [ja] piszę ✓

Digression: using być with active participles (jestem piszący and such) ...

If you really want to use the active participle to describe what you're doing - same as in english present continuous tense - you could say "jestem piszący", but that really sounds unnatural. Although such structure is sometimes used to express identity, habits, or a state:

Jestem wierzący. – I'm a believer / religious. literally: I'm beliving.
On jest niepalący. – He doesn't smoke / is not a smoker, literally: He is non-smoking.

However this is not as common as using the verbs themselves, and still the above examples have their alternatives – On nie pali. (He doesn't smoke), On nie jest palaczem. (He is not a smoker).

Digression: if one present tense is not enough in your opinion ...

There are also such things as frequentative verbs, used to express habitual actions. For example:

mówić (ja mówię, ty mówisz) → mawiać (ja mawiam, ty mawiasz…)
chodzić (ja chodzę, ty chodzisz) → chadzać (ja chadzam, ty chadzasz…)
jeść (ja jem, ty jesz) → jadać (ja jadam, ty jadasz…)
czytać (ja czytam, ty czytasz) → czytywać (ja czytuję, ty czytujesz…) etc.

By the way - they can also work in the past and future tenses: ja czytywałam (I used to read), będę czytywać (I will read from time to time).

The thing is, these verbs are falling into disuse and appear very rarely in spoken language. Their role is taken over by the imperfective aspect and the context indicating the habitual nature of the action:

jadam - I have a habit of eating
jem – I eat; I'm eating; I have a habit of eating

2. Aspects

The aspect category can't really be smoothly translated 1:1 into English tenses. The most effective approach in learning is to pay attention to the nature of the action described by the verb:

aspekt niedokonany imperfective	aspekt dokonany perfective
action in progress or not complete Wczoraj czytałam gazetę. Jutro będę czytać ją dalej. Yesterday I read the newspaper [but didn't finish it]. Tomorrow I'll read it further.	completed action with an obvious effect Wczoraj przeczytałam gazetę. Jutro przeczytam inną. Yesterday I read the newspaper [to the end]. Tomorrow I'll read another one.
repeated action W dzieciństwie odwiedzałam rodzinę w Łodzi. As a child, I used to visit my family in Łódź.	one-time action W dzieciństwie odwiedziłam rodzinę w Łodzi. As a child, I visited my family in Łódź [once].
simultaneous events Kiedy piłam kawę, zadzwonił telefon. While I was drinking coffee, the phone rang [once]. * Kiedy piłam kawę, dzwonił telefon. While I was drinking coffee, the phone kept ringing [and I didn't answer].	sequence of events Kiedy wypiłam kawę, zadzwonił telefon. [first] Once I had finished my coffee, [then] the phone rang.
keywords
Jak często? How often? codziennie, co tydzień, co rok... (każdego dnia, każdego tygodnia, każdego roku) every day, every week, every year... zawsze, często, czasami, od czasu do czasu, rzadko, nigdy always, often, sometimes, from time to time, rarely, never zwykle usually Jak długo? How long? od 8:00 do 16:00, od wtorku do piątku, od rana do wieczora from 8:00 to 16:00, from Tuesday to Friday, from morning to evening długo, krótko long, short (przez) 10 minut, dwie godziny, kilka miesięcy (for) 10 minutes, two hours, a few months	nareszcie, wreszcie, w końcu (finally) nagle, wtem (suddenly)

You've probably noticed at least a few different ways to form the perfective tense of a verb so far:

robić → zrobić to do
czytać → przeczytać to read
odwiedzić → odwiedzać to visit
pić → wypić to drink

There are more possible ways. Most often, it's a prefix (z-, wy-, prze-, od-...), but in some cases - mostly verbs that already contain a prefix modifying their meaning - the "base" form is the perfective form (the one with the prefix), and then the imperfective form is formed through alternation in the root. Compare:

pisać → napisać to write
odpisać → odpisywać to write back, to respond

And also there are irregular aspectual pairs:

mówić → powiedzieć to say
brać → wziąć to take
znajdować → znaleźć to find
widzieć → zobaczyć to see etc.

Tip:

The above-mentioned formation of perfective forms using prefixes, and the above-above-mentioned three types of verb conjugation, are quite unpredictable (while you can read about the meanings of Polish prefixes or just watch a video like this one, and that will certainly be helpful, it's still more of a memorization aid than a prediction aid). So, when learning a new Polish verb, memorize its perfective or imperfective equivalent and what type of conjugation they have (expressed by the first and second person endings). For example:

imperfective: pisać - ja piszę, ty piszesz
perfective: napisać - ja napiszę, ty napiszesz

Knowing these six forms, you can easily reconstruct the entire paradigm of the given verb.

Conveniently, dictionaries usually do provide this information. They may also include additional details (as in the example below: -nę, -niesz instead of just -ę, -esz) indicating specific subgroups within conjugation types: obciągać -am -asz impf, pf obciągnąć -nę -niesz + I cover (e.g. with tarp), hitch

obciągać -am -asz impf, pf obciągnąć -nę -niesz + I cover (e.g. with tarp), hitch

Oscar E. Swan AN ENGLISH-SPEAKER'S POLISH-ENGLISH DICTIONARY WITH AN ENGLISH-POLISH INDEX WEB- OR CD-BASED VERSION, 2008

If you don't have a traditional Polish dictionary, Wiktionary in Polish or English is also a great option (admittedly, English is much more developed, the editors do a brilliant job), especially since the entries contain full conjugation tables, lists of cognate words and updated definitions, taking into account slang and regionalisms as well (unlike the above excerpt from Oscar E. Swan').

3. Participles

Detailed information on how participles are formed will be available in the [ Participles ] section. For now, here's a general overview of what we're dealing with.

Polish participles are divided into adjectival participles and adverbial participles.

Adjectival participles

1. active adjectival participle (imiesłów przymiotnikowy czynny)

The active participle refers to the subject performing an action. In the masculine singular, it ends in -ący:

pisać → piszący

Mężczyzna piszący artykuł jest dziennikarzem.
The man writing the article is a journalist.

Since it denotes an action that is ongoing at a given moment, it can only be formed from imperfective verbs.

And what about perfective verbs? There is no adjectival participle in Polish that describes a subject who has already completed an action. To express that idea, we use a clause with który ("which" literally, but "who" in this context):

Mężczyzna ~~napiszący~~ jest dziennikarzem. ✗ (no active adjectivals from perfective!)
Mężczyzna, który napisał artykuł, jest dziennikarzem.
The man who wrote the article is a journalist.

If you're wondering whether we can do the same thing with imperfective verbs and simply say: mężczyzna, który pisze artykuł instead of mężczyzna piszący artykuł, then yes, we can. In fact, the relative clause version is very common, especially in spoken language.

2. passive adjectival participle (imiesłów przymiotnikowy bierny)

The passive participle refers to the object of a transitive action (an action with a direct object - think verbs such as to have, to see, to make, to like and so on). In the masculine singular, it usually ends in -ny (less commonly -ty, for a small group of monosyllabic verbs and their derivatives).
Unlike the active participle, it can be formed from both imperfective and perfective verbs.

pisać → pisany
napisać → napisany

Artykuł pisany przez tego dziennikarza na razie wygląda nieźle.
The article being written by this journalist looks nice so far.
Artykuł napisany przez tego dziennikarza jest warty polecenia.
The article written [finished] by this journalist is worth recommending.

Adjectival participles - both active and passive - decline for case. The good news is that they do so in exactly the same way as adjectives (taking different endings depending on the gender, number and case):

[PRZYKŁADY]

Adverbial participles

1. contemporary adverbial participle (imiesłów przysłówkowy współczesny)

This participle denotes an action taking place simultaneously with the action expressed in the main clause. It's formed from imperfective verbs and ends in -ąc.

Pisząc artykuł, dziennikarz pił herbatę.
While writing the article, the journalist was drinking tea.

2. anterior adverbial participle (imiesłów przysłówkowy uprzedni)

This participle denotes an action that precedes the action expressed in the main clause. In contemporary Polish, it can only be formed from perfective verbs and ends in -wszy (less commonly -łszy after consonants)

Napisawszy artykuł, dziennikarz poszedł spać.
Having written the article, the journalist went to sleep.

If you were happy to hear that adjectival participles decline exactly like adjectives, here's another piece of good news: adverbial participles do not decline at all. Just like adverbs, they have only one form, regardless of the grammatical gender or number of the subject.
So, in theory, they're easy to use. They also make you sound smart (or straight up lofty in the case of the anterior participle, which is mostly associated with literary styles).
In theory.
In practice, Polish native speakers somehow manage to mess this up with impressive regularity.

Digression: what's so difficult about adverbials ...

So, the key to using adverbial participles is remembering that they refer to actions performed by the subject of the clause. That's why sentences like these just don't make sense:

Pisząc artykuł, ptaki ćwierkały za oknem. ✗
While writing the article, birds were chirping outside the window.

The subject of this sentence is ptaki (birds). The predicate is ćwierkały (were chirping). There is no other subject present, so whether we like it or not, the adverbial participle has to refer to the birds and, as a result, the sentence means that the birds were chirping while they were writing that article. So how do you fix this and regain control over what the participle refers to? By actually mentioning the thing the participle is supposed to refer to. And that thing has to be the subject of the clause:

Pisząc artykuł, dziennikarz słyszał, jak ptaki ćwierkały za oknem. ✓
While writing an article, the journalist could hear birds chirping outside the window.

You don't even have to explicitly name the subject. Polish allows that because the verb form itself can indicate who is performing the action: Pisząc artykuł, słyszał, jak ptaki ćwierkały za oknem. (While writing an article, he could hear birds chirping outside the window.). But the subject has to be there somewhere. And then the participle merely provides additional information for the main clause.

If you don't want to use adverbial participles, you can replace them with an expression with kiedy (when, once, while) and a properly conjugated verb:

Pisząc artykuł, pił herbatę. → Kiedy pisał artykuł, pił herbatę. (while he was writing the article...)

Napisawszy artykuł, poszedł spać. → Kiedy napisał artykuł, poszedł spać. (once he had written the article...)

4. Moods

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5. Defective verbs

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