I've been looking at the terrifying subject of ' prefixed Polish verbs of motion' ( Czasowniki oznaczające ruch z przedrostkiem) Isn't Polish grammar fun? I understand that when adding a prefix to the indeterminate form ' jeżdzić, we have to use jeżdżać and not in fact jeździć. I can conjugate jeżdżać in the czas terazniejsze , but not in the czas przeszły . How do you do this please?

Well, you wouldn't conjugate "jeżdżać" on its own, you'd need a prefix, like, say: "przejeżdżać" meaning to "drive by"

So let's conjugate that (in masucline):

Przejeżdżałem
Przejeżdżałeś
Przejeżdżał

Przejeżdżaliśmy
Przejeżdżaliście
Przejeżdżali

It's regular.

Hope that helps.

On a side note, as a native speaker of Polish I never consciously thought of the grammatical aspects you mention, it was always natural. So it's interesting to see you struggle with it, linguistically that is! I feel bad otherwise! But then again, native speakers of English take phrasal verbs for granted haha

Another interesting prefix that does not seem to be a very obvious one is u-.

Ujeżdżać n.p. konie (break in horses).

More examples:
usprawnić
udoskonalić
uzbierać
umierać
umorzyć

My thanks to you both for coming to my rescue again! I can promise you that many students of your language have problems with Polish verbs At the beginning they seem quite straightforward , but then we meet aspekt jednokierunkowy and aspekt niejednokierunkowy np iść / chodzić , and, of course , if you are going by some means of transport jechać and jeździć. Then we are totally perplexed by aspekt dokonany and aspekt niedokonany and then prefixed verbs of motion where the aspekt niejednokierunkowy form of the verb becomes aspekt niedokonany in its new form with a prefix and the aspekt jednokierunkowy becomes aspekt dokonany . Then of course jeździć becomes jeżdżać and latać becomes latywać and the whole thing is a total nightmare I think I need a beer or two
Thanks again for your help, it's always great to read your comments

Pozdrawiam serdecznie Wixer

The more I learn about Polish from your perspective, the more I feel fortunate
I have not had to learn it as a second language. It is a total madness indeed.
It gives a lot of opportunities to play with it though. On the other hand,
guys like Billy Shakespeare and Jimmy Joyce were not doing badly with English either,
so as the proletariat on this side of the pond say: different strokes for different folks.

Ultimately beer will make it all clear and easy.

Żywiec i wszystko jasne.

Cheers

You're right of course, I know learning English brings with it its fair share of problems. I haven't forgotten your advice from a while ago either, bez vodki nie rozberiosz.
Nawiasem mówiąc, lubię Żywiec, ale wolę Żubr , to jest naprawdę napój bogów.

na zdrowie

Oh my...
I know that ultimately it is not a social forum, but I just simply couldn't help myself: wixen, I am full of respect and appreciation for you for your effort. Being honest I haven't even heard about aspekt jednokierunkowy! Or maybe I've pushed the traumatic memory out... Also feeling really sorry for my man now who'll face the nightmare of learning polish pretty soon,that is going to be fun...

Anyway, I raise my glass to you, Mr. Wixen, and your fellow students. You seem to be pretty good already but you're still pursuing the challenge! Twoje zdrowie! (chyba sie przyda do dalszej nauki )

Thank you for your kind words. I see no harm in being sociable on this forum. I think it's very interesting to know more about the people who come on here. Or maybe I'm just wścibski. Good luck to your man.