"Zawsze kupowałem jedenaście cytryn."
Translation:I always used to buy eleven lemons.
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139
Sure, it can refer to what the future was from the vantage point of the past (future in the past) but this should not be conflated with actual future tense, which "would" can never mean. After all, "would" is the "past tense" form of "will".
Ok, in general you are right, that "would" most of the times is used when talking about the past not the future. But in conditional clauses it can sometimes mean a future action as well. Ex. "I would never do that" can refer to the past and the future. "If I asked you, would you come?" again talking about the future action.
139
That's not future, it's conditional. It's best to think about conditional as a tense of its own, the tense of being dependent on another action.
"I always bought eleven lemons" is a perfectly good English sentence, but I think it would primarily be used in a context where you're saying when you always bought the lemons. As in: "I used to go to that store over there, and whenever I did, I always bought eleven lemons."
All that said, I feel much better translating "zawsze kupowałem" as "I always used to buy" than as "I always bought".
820
"zawsze kupiłem" does not really make sense in Polish but "kupowałbym zawsze" does really make sense then? (kto pyta nie błądzi)
635
"Zawsze kupowałem jedenaście cytryn." wg powinno mieć tłumacznie "I have always bougth eleven lemos". Z kolei "I always used tu buy eleven lemons." powinno zostać przetłumaczone: "Zawsze zwykłem kupować jedenaście cytryn."
"I have always bought" sugeruje, że wciąż kupuję jedenaście cytryn, czego może polskie zdanie nie wyklucza, ale to prędzej byłoby jednak "zawsze kupuję".
"I used to buy" to naprawdę jest dobre tłumaczenie niedokonanego "zawsze kupowałem". Natomiast można dodać dosłowne "zwykłem kupować" do akceptowanych odpowiedzi, czemu nie.
820
*I was always buying eleven lemons." But now I failed unfortunately and won't do that further.
1059
Wouldn't that be "I have always been buying"? "I have always bought" rather suggests that I've recently changed my habit, so I'd say it's acceptable.
139
"I have always bought" doesn't require me to have recently changed my habit, although that's one possibility. Since torronoir's sentence doesn't provide further context you would assume my habit is continuing. Thus Jellei is right and it would translate to the Polish present. In regards to "I have always been buying" I don't think "always" works well with the perfect continuous tenses. "always" has too much of a habitual implication.
When "I have always bought" is provided in context it may or may not imply that my habit is continuing. The context is crucial to translate it into Polish correctly. After all the Polish perfective/imperfective dichotomy, which is a lot to do with whether an action is completed or not, doesn't align with the English perfect/non-perfect which is about whether the action is tethered to the time of the verb's tense (but not necessarily completed).
1059
Thank you, Ben, that makes a lot of sense! Tenses are one of the hardest topics in English grammar and I still get confused sometimes...
1084
"I have always bought eleven lemons" refers to the past but it was marked wrong. Why?