Every Polish verb comes as a pair. The imperfective describes an action in progress or repeated; the perfective describes one completed whole. In the past, czytałem means I was reading and przeczytałem means I read it through to the end.
Examples
- W zeszły weekend zwiedziłem całe muzeum.
- Last weekend I went round the whole museum.
- Wczoraj zwiedzałem muzeum przez trzy godziny.
- Yesterday I was going round the museum for three hours.
- Napisałam list i wysłałam go.
- I wrote the letter and sent it.
The mistake to avoid
A perfective verb has no present tense - napiszę is future, not now.
Where this fits in
Talking about the past, Polish A2: Tell stories about yesterday, last weekend, and life experiences using the past tense.