"Mój sąsiad często mi pomagał."

Translation: My neighbor often helped me.

[MichaelEst116551]

I would think that "My neighbor frequently helped me" should be accepted

[Jellei]

Yeah, added.

[RobinB896941]

In another exercise Duo had us translate "on mi bardzo pomógł [he helped me a lot], rather than "...pomagał."

What's going on here?

[Jellei]

Perfective vs imperfective.

"pomógł" = he helped me in some specific situation.

"pomagał" = he helped me 'generally', therefore either it focuses on the action (he was helping me the whole summer), or he helped me in multiple situations.

In that another exercise you mentioned, "pomagał" would also make some sense.

Here you can only have imperfective "pomagał", as you also have "often".

[RobinB896941]

[Edited] Thanks for your explanation - though perfective vs. imperfective will continue to trip me up for some time yet.

The various past tenses, including their gender sensitivity, are (to me) the greatest obstacles I've so far encountered in Polish. When I first hit them, I seriously considered abandoning the course...

[Jellei]

Oh yeah, I don't know what I wrote... only "pomagał" works here.

Edited my comment.

[RobinB896941]

Thanks for proof-reading your original comment and resolving the contradiction :)

To reflect this I've radically edited mine.

[palitwin]

"My neighbor helped me often." is also correct English yet marked me wrong.

[Jellei]

We somehow missed it. Added now.