Learn Polish: Tłumaczyliśmy ten tekst cały dzień. - We were translating this text all day.

In Polish, we use the imperfective aspect when we want to emphasize the process or duration of an action, rather than its completion. The phrase cały dzień (all day) strongly signals that the focus is on how long the activity took, which is why the imperfective tłumaczyliśmy (we were translating) is the right choice.

What would happen if we used the perfective form przetłumaczyliśmy instead?

If you used the perfective przetłumaczyliśmy, the meaning would change to "We finished translating this text." However, it would sound strange to pair that with the exact phrase cały dzień (all day). If you want to say it took you all day to finish it, you would usually use a preposition to mean "in a whole day," like: Przetłumaczyliśmy ten tekst w cały dzień.

Does the ending of tłumaczyliśmy tell us anything about the group of people doing the translating?

Yes! The -liśmy ending shows that "we" is a masculine personal group (meaning there is at least one man in the group). If the group were made up entirely of women, you would use the non-masculine personal ending -łyśmy, making it tłumaczyłyśmy.

Why is the time phrase cały dzień in this exact form?