"Ja chodzę."
Translation:I walk.
35 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
You use chodzę when talking about something you do routinely. "Często chodzę na spacery" I often go for a walk. "Idę do teatrze." I am going to the theater. This is happening right now so iść is used. The same is said with all moving verbs including jeźdźić (to ride, routine) and jechać (to ride, now, one occasion) I may be a little bit incorrect with the explanation but this is how I think about it and use it.
1807
The former represents more a habitual action, as in " I go to school" not one that is currently occuring. If you are expressing the action of going, as a present progressive, I am going to school, ( in the process of doing so) you would use the latter.
I think one of the reasons why this section goes unanswered is that there is a problem in the way English is taught in Poland, which is often based on the idea that one can map certain grammar in one language onto another. When I taught English in Poland there were endless issues with come/go because of this. Once the process is reversed, where the average learner understands the English better than the teacher, it all comes apart. Both verbs mean come and go, and can be compared with the exchange: "Come here!" "I'm coming.'" "Chodz tutaj!" "Idę."
The issue is more linguistic/cultural. In the US, whether you walk or drive or take the bus to go to the movies, you just say 'I'm going to the movies'. Of course, you can say 'I'm walking to the movies', or 'I'm taking the bus to go to the movies', but you usually don't say it, because the means of going there is just not what you want to stress. In Poland/Polish, you have a different verb whether you're walking or going there by conveyance. So of course, there will be some translation issues. Do you want to translate literally and sound weird to English speakers, or do you want to translate the thought and lose part of the meaning? That is the main issue here.
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I don't know why the comments have not been officially answered. I believe the difference between chodze and ide is that one of the verbs is referring to a specific occasion (I am walking/going right now) whereas the other is habitual (I walk/go to work each day). I find it difficult to remember which one is which.
There may be a context where "chodzić" translates as "to come", but as the basic, direct translations are concerned, "chodzić" means "to walk" and "to be walking" (when it's just 'walking around without a specific direction'). "iść" means "to be walking" (right now).
They also work for "to go"/"to be going", if we mean going on foot.