planowali

Planowali is the Polish past tense form of the verb planować, meaning “they planned” or “they were planning.” It is the masculine personal plural form of the imperfective verb planować. The feminine plural form is planowały, and the corresponding infinitive is planować. The perfective counterpart is zaplanować, whose past tense forms include zaplanowali and zaplanowały.

Planowali indicates planning activity in the past without necessarily marking its completion. It describes ongoing or repeated planning by a group of people, rather than a fully completed act of planning. For comparison, the perfective zaplanowali would emphasize that the planning was carried out to completion.

Examples of usage:

- Planowali wakacje na przyszły rok. (They were planning vacations for next year.)

- Wczoraj planowali, co zrobić dalej. (Yesterday they were planning what to do next.)

In linguistic terms, planowali is an example of the imperfective aspect in past tense, contrasted with the perfective zaplanowali, which conveys a completed planning action. Planować is a common, semi-regular Polish verb formed with the suffix -ować and the stem plan-, related to the noun plan. The word appears across formal and informal registers and can be combined with various objects and subordinate clauses to describe planned activities, intentions, or arrangements. See also planować, zaplanować, plan.