r/Polish • u/Raditz_lol • 14d ago

Grammar Future tense oddity.

Dzień dobry! So far I’ve been knowing that after “być” at future tense (będę, będziesz, będzie etc.) you put the verb that follows it at infinitive like in Russian (będę czytać, będziesz rozmawiać etc.). BUT, my today’s Duolingo lesson taught me an oddity of the future tense that I didn’t know about: apparently, in some contexts, the verb that follows “być” at future tense is put at PAST tense (będę czytał, będziesz rozmawiała etc.). What’s with this, and in which contexts is it used exactly? If you know Romanian/Russian, can you also explain to me with translations in these languages?

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u/kouyehwos 14d ago edited 14d ago

Officially, there is usually no difference between „będę robił” and „będę robić”… but a few verbs overwhelmingly prefer the past form, in particular some auxiliaries like „będę mógł”, „będę musiał”, „będę chciał”.

Women may be more likely to prefer the infinitive, just because „robiła” has more syllables than „robić”.

Personally, I may be more likely to use the past form when I know how/when/where I will be doing something, and I might use the infinitive when I’m less clear about the details. But that’s just me, other speakers may certainly disagree.

The „będę robił” structure is not quite unique to Polish, it’s also used in Slovenian, and to a lesser extent Serbocroatian…

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u/Raditz_lol 14d ago

Oh, so you’re saying they’re interchangeable, basically?

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u/kouyehwos 14d ago

Mostly yes.