"Chcieliśmy wam pomóc."

Translation: We wanted to help you.

[PaulinkoLubner]

We wanted to help you (plural ) wam is you (pl)

[Modric853]

Why is this not "We wanted you to help"

[Jellei]

Because this is not what the Polish sentence says. "Chcieliśmy wam pomóc: means exactly that we wanted to be helpful in whatever you (plural) are doing.

Your version would probably be "Chcieliśmy, żebyście/byście/abyście (nam) pomogli"

I put "nam" in brackets because your sentence doesn't specify if it's 'to help us', I just considered it the most probable option.

Wiktionary entry for 'byś', the others work in the same way in conjugation.

[Modric853]

thanks but polish is to hard :) Chcielismy = we wanted, wam = you and Pomoc = to help, so to me that makes "we wanted you to help" ???

[Jellei]

Treat 'wam', at least here, as "to you". We wanted to help 'to you'. The word order of English and Polish sentence is simply different.

[Modric853]

OK Jellei I think I understand now

[Arnoldpitt]

I s there any guidance as to when a verb should end -iszmy and when it should end is(with accent)my

[alik1989]

I'm not aware of any verbs ending in -iszmy.

[Jellei]

"(na)piszmy", but that's an imperative (let's write), so it's quite a different thing.