Conjugation IV (-am, -asz) in Polish

In Brief

A common Polish present-tense pattern uses -am, -asz, -a, -amy, -acie, -ają: kocham, kochasz, kocha, kochamy, kochacie, kochają. Remove -ć from the infinitive of a regular verb such as kochać and add the ending for the person. This works for many verbs in -ać, but not for every verb with that infinitive ending.

Overview

Conjugation is the way a verb changes to show who performs an action. In Polish, those changes carry information that English normally expresses with a subject pronoun: kocham means “I love,” while kochamy means “we love.” The subject—the person or thing doing the action—can therefore remain unspoken when the context is clear.

This pattern is often called Conjugation IV in teaching materials and is identified by its first- and second-person singular forms, -am and -asz. You meet it at A1 because it covers useful everyday verbs such as kochać “to love,” czekać “to wait,” szukać “to look for,” grać “to play,” mieszkać “to live/reside,” and słuchać “to listen.”

The six endings themselves are regular and predictable. The main challenge is learning which verbs belong to this pattern and which complement each verb takes—a complement is the word or phrase that completes its meaning. For example, Polish says czekać na autobus (“wait for a bus”) but szukać hotelu (“look for a hotel”), with different grammatical patterns after the verbs.

How It Works

The complete present-tense pattern

Use the infinitive—the dictionary form ending in -ć—as your starting point. With a regular verb such as kochać, remove final -ć to get kocha-, then add the personal endings.

Person	Pronoun	Ending	kochać (“to love”)	English
1st singular	ja	-m	kocham	I love
2nd singular	ty	-sz	kochasz	you love
3rd singular	on, ona, ono	—	kocha	he/she/it loves
1st plural	my	-my	kochamy	we love
2nd plural	wy	-cie	kochacie	you love / you all love
3rd plural	oni, one	-ją	kochają	they love

You may also memorize the forms as the traditional set -am, -asz, -a, -amy, -acie, -ają. This view treats koch- as the base; the table above instead keeps the final a in the stem. Both descriptions produce exactly the same forms.

The third-person singular has no extra consonant ending: on czeka, ona szuka. In the third-person plural, the spelling is -ają, including the dotted letter ą: czekają, szukają. The letter ą is not interchangeable with a.

Four model verbs

Person	kochać	czekać	szukać	grać
ja	kocham	czekam	szukam	gram
ty	kochasz	czekasz	szukasz	grasz
on/ona/ono	kocha	czeka	szuka	gra
my	kochamy	czekamy	szukamy	gramy
wy	kochacie	czekacie	szukacie	gracie
oni/one	kochają	czekają	szukają	grają

With grać, removing -ć leaves gra-, so the forms are gram and grasz, not graam and graasz. The same logic applies to any regular member of this group: preserve what remains before final -ć and attach the person marker.

Subject pronouns are often omitted

English normally requires “I,” “you,” or “we.” Polish usually does not, because the ending identifies the subject:

• Czekam na Martę. — “I’m waiting for Marta.”
• Szukamy hotelu. — “We’re looking for a hotel.”
• Gracie w tenisa? — “Do you play tennis?” / “Are you playing tennis?”

Use an explicit pronoun when contrasting people, correcting an assumption, or adding emphasis: Ja czekam, a ty szukasz mapy (“I’m waiting, while you’re looking for a map”). Polish does not have a separate present continuous form like English “am waiting.” Depending on context, czekam can mean “I wait,” “I’m waiting,” or “I do wait.”

Questions and negation

A yes-or-no question can have the same word order as a statement, with question intonation in speech and a question mark in writing: Czekasz na autobus? You can also begin with czy: Czy czekasz na autobus? Both mean “Are you waiting for the bus?”

To make the verb negative, place nie directly before it:

• Nie gram dzisiaj. — “I’m not playing today.”
• Nie czekamy na niego. — “We aren’t waiting for him.”
• Ona nie szuka pracy. — “She isn’t looking for work.”

The verb ending does not change in questions or negative statements.

Learn the words that follow each verb

Polish nouns change form according to their role in the sentence. This is called case: a case is a form that shows how a noun relates to the rest of the sentence. You do not need to master the whole case system to use these verbs, but learn each verb together with its common pattern.

Verb pattern	Basic meaning	Example	Literal structure
kochać + accusative	love someone/something	Kocham Annę.	love Anna
czekać na + accusative	wait for someone/something	Czekam na autobus.	wait on/for a bus
szukać + genitive	look for someone/something	Szukamy hotelu.	seek of-a-hotel
słuchać + genitive	listen to someone/something	Słucham muzyki.	listen of-music
grać w + accusative	play a game or sport	Grają w piłkę.	play at football
grać na + locative	play an instrument	Gram na gitarze.	play on the guitar

The accusative, genitive, and locative are different cases. At first, memorize whole chunks such as czekać na autobus, szukać hotelu, and grać na gitarze rather than trying to translate English prepositions word for word.

The beginner rule—and its limit

A useful first rule is: many common verbs ending in -ać use -am, -asz. However, -ać does not guarantee this conjugation. For example, pisać (“to write”) gives piszę, piszesz, and brać (“to take”) gives biorę, bierzesz. When learning a new Polish verb, record the infinitive together with its ja and ty forms. If those are -am and -asz, you can predict the rest of this pattern.

Examples in Context

Polish	English	Note
Kocham cię.	I love you.	kocham: 1st person singular
Czekasz na autobus?	Are you waiting for the bus?	A question without czy
Szukamy hotelu.	We’re looking for a hotel.	szukać takes the genitive
Grają w piłkę.	They play football.	grać w + a sport or game
Mieszkam w Krakowie.	I live in Kraków.	The pronoun ja is unnecessary
Czy kochacie polskie kino?	Do you love Polish cinema?	czy introduces a yes-or-no question
Ona czeka na koleżankę przed kawiarnią.	She is waiting for a friend outside the café.	The pronoun highlights “she”
Nie szukam nowego mieszkania.	I’m not looking for a new apartment.	nie comes before the verb
Gramy w szachy w każdy piątek.	We play chess every Friday.	A repeated present action
Słuchacie teraz muzyki?	Are you listening to music now?	Context gives the ongoing meaning
Tata gra na gitarze, a córka śpiewa.	Dad plays the guitar, and his daughter sings.	grać na + an instrument
Dzieci mieszkają blisko szkoły.	The children live near the school.	mieszkają: 3rd person plural
Ja sprzątam kuchnię, a ty czekasz na gości.	I’m cleaning the kitchen, while you’re waiting for the guests.	Pronouns create a contrast
Dlaczego pytasz?	Why are you asking?	A common question with pytać
Znamy tę restaurację i często tam wracamy.	We know this restaurant and often return there.	Two 1st-person plural verbs

Common Mistakes

Assuming every -ać verb follows this pattern

• Wrong: Ja pisam e-mail.
• Right: Ja piszę e-mail. (“I’m writing an email.”)
• Why: Pisać ends in -ać, but it belongs to another present-tense pattern. Learn pisać — piszę, piszesz as a set.

Keeping the full infinitive before adding an ending

• Wrong: Kochaćam cię.
• Right: Kocham cię.
• Why: Do not attach an ending to the complete infinitive. Remove final -ć: kochać → kocha- → kocham.

Losing ą in the third-person plural

• Wrong: Oni graja w piłkę.
• Right: Oni grają w piłkę.
• Why: The plural ending is -ją, producing -ają in this pattern. The letter ą is required in standard spelling.

Using the singular form with a plural subject

• Wrong: My czeka na autobus.
• Right: My czekamy na autobus.
• Why: My (“we”) requires -amy. The subject may be omitted, but the verb must still show the correct person and number.

Translating English verb patterns directly

• Wrong: Szukamy za hotelem.
• Right: Szukamy hotelu.
• Why: Polish szukać normally takes the genitive directly, without a word corresponding to English “for.” By contrast, czekać requires na: czekamy na autobus.

Adding a Polish equivalent of English “do”

• Wrong: Czy robisz kochasz muzykę?
• Right: Czy kochasz muzykę? or Kochasz muzykę?
• Why: Polish does not use an auxiliary equivalent to English “do” to form ordinary present-tense questions.

Usage Notes

One Polish present tense, several English translations

The form itself does not distinguish a habit from an action happening now. Gram w piłkę can mean “I play football” or “I’m playing football.” Time expressions make the intended meaning clear: gram teraz (“I’m playing now”), gram co sobotę (“I play every Saturday”), and często gram (“I often play”).

Pronouns, emphasis, and politeness

Leaving out ja, ty, my, or wy is neutral and natural when the subject is obvious. Repeating pronouns in every sentence can sound unnecessarily emphatic. Nevertheless, pronouns are useful in contrasts: Ty czekasz, a ja szukam (“You wait, and I’ll look”).

For polite singular “you,” Polish commonly uses pan when addressing a man and pani when addressing a woman. These take a third-person singular verb: Czy pan szuka hotelu? (“Are you looking for a hotel, sir?”), not Czy pan szukasz...? Polite plural forms such as państwo take a third-person plural verb: Czy państwo czekają?

Spelling and pronunciation

Keep Polish diacritics when writing: kochają and grają contain ą. In modern standard pronunciation, the sound represented by ą changes somewhat according to its surroundings, but beginners should first connect the written ending -ają with “they.” Accurate spelling makes the grammatical contrast visible even when pronunciation feels unfamiliar.

Beyond the Basics / Advanced Use

You do not need to master the points in this section at A1, but they explain forms you will encounter later.

First, Polish present-tense forms interact with aspect, the distinction between viewing an action as ongoing/repeated and viewing it as a complete whole. The verbs in this lesson are imperfective, so forms such as czekam, szukam, and gram describe present, repeated, or ongoing situations. A perfective verb has no true present meaning: its “present-looking” forms normally refer to the future. Do not assume that every verb with a familiar personal ending describes the present.

Second, similar-looking verbs may not be fully regular members of this class. Dać (“to give”) has dam, dasz, da, damy, dacie, dadzą; the third-person plural dadzą breaks the regular -ają pattern. Mieć (“to have”) gives mam, masz, ma, mamy, macie, mają. These high-frequency verbs are best learned as separate paradigms rather than forced into the simple kochać model.

Third, a verb’s present-tense class does not by itself predict all its past or command forms. Polish past-tense verbs also show gender in the singular, as in grałem (“I played,” said by a man) and grałam (“I played,” said by a woman). Imperatives—the forms used for commands—may introduce further stem changes, such as czekaj! (“wait!”). Treat those as later systems built from the same vocabulary, not as extra endings in the present paradigm.

Finally, word order becomes flexible when context and emphasis matter. Kocham cię is neutral; Ciebie kocham strongly focuses or contrasts “you.” The verb ending remains the same, but moving an element to a prominent position can change what the speaker highlights.

Practice Tips

1. Build six-form chains aloud. Choose five reliable model verbs—kochać, czekać, szukać, mieszkać, and grać—and say all six forms in order. Then start from random pronouns so that you are choosing an ending rather than reciting a rhyme.
2. Learn verbs as short frames. Put czekać na + accusative, szukać + genitive, grać w + accusative, and grać na + locative on separate cards, each with a complete sentence. This prevents English “for,” “at,” and “on” from controlling your Polish.
3. Transform one sentence three ways. Start with Czekamy na autobus. Make it negative (Nie czekamy...), then a question (Czy czekamy...?), then change the person (Czekasz...?). This trains meaning, endings, and sentence structure together.

Related Concepts

• Prerequisite: Personal Pronouns — learn ja, ty, on/ona/ono, my, wy, and oni/one, which correspond to the six verb forms.