Question 1

How do you form the "let's" commands spieszmy and odpocznijmy?

Accepted Answer

In Polish, "let's do something" is built using the regular command form (the imperative) for a single person, plus the ending -my. For example, the command "hurry up!" to one person is spiesz się. To say "let's hurry", you just add -my to get spieszmy się. Similarly, "rest!" is odpocznij, so "let's rest" is odpocznijmy.

Question 2

Why is there an -ij- in the middle of odpocznijmy?

Accepted Answer

The base verb is odpocząć (to rest), and its stem is odpoczn-. If we just added the ending directly to the stem, we would get "odpocznmy", which is a very heavy cluster of consonants and hard to say! Whenever a verb stem ends in a tricky consonant cluster, Polish inserts -ij- or -y- to make it pronounceable. This gives us the base command odpocznij, to which we add -my for "let's".

Question 3

Why does the first command use an imperfective verb (spieszyć się) but the second uses a perfective verb (odpocząć)?

Accepted Answer

This is a very common rule for commands in Polish! When telling someone NOT to do something, you almost always use the imperfective verb, because you want them to stop an ongoing action or not do it at all (so we use nie spieszmy się). But when telling someone TO do a single, completed action, you use the perfective verb (like odpocznijmy).

Question 4

Could the word się go somewhere else, like Nie się spieszmy?

Accepted Answer

No, that would sound unnatural. The reflexive word się is shy; it never starts a sentence, and it prefers not to stand right after nie if there is a better option. In short negative commands like this, się usually tucks in safely right after the verb: Nie spieszmy się.

Nie spieszmy się. Odpocznijmy tutaj.

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