Good news first: Polish has only three tenses in total, past, present and future. No 'I have been doing', no 'I had done'. You build the past from the verb stem. The one twist for English speakers is that the ending changes depending on whether the person acting is male or female.
Build it from the stem
Take the dictionary form, drop the final -ć, and add the past ending. robić (to do) becomes robi-, then robiłem (a man) or robiłam (a woman) for 'I did'.
| Meaning | Man says | Woman says |
|---|---|---|
| I was | byłem | byłam |
| you were | byłeś | byłaś |
| he / she was | był | była |
| we were | byliśmy | byłyśmy |
| you were (plural) | byliście | byłyście |
| they were | byli | były |
| Meaning | Man says | Woman says |
|---|---|---|
| I did | robiłem | robiłam |
| you did | robiłeś | robiłaś |
| he / she did | robił | robiła |
| we did | robiliśmy | robiłyśmy |
| they did | robili | robiły |
The gender is about who's acting
byłem means 'I was' said by a man; byłam means 'I was' said by a woman. Match the ending to the person doing the action, not to who you're talking to.
Tip: Spot the pattern: -m marks 'I', -ś marks 'you'. The feminine form just slips an extra -a- in front: był-e-m (m) vs był-a-m (f).
Watch out: You still drop 'ja / ty' most of the time, because the ending already carries both the person AND the gender. 'Byłem' alone is a full sentence: 'I was'.
Byłem wczoraj w pracy
/ BIH-wem FCHOH-rahy f PRAH-tsih /
I was at work yesterday (a man speaking)
Byłam wczoraj w domu
/ BIH-wam FCHOH-rahy v DOH-moo /
I was at home yesterday (a woman speaking)