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What does “zdrzemnę się” mean in Polish?

Confident he’s won, the hare announces “Zdrzemnę się chwileczkę” — I’ll doze off for a little moment — right before the tortoise overtakes him. Polish has a whole class of verbs like this, built with “-ną-,” that name a single, quick instance of something rather than the ongoing activity: “drzemać” is to be dozing in general, but “zdrzemnąć się” is to take just the one short nap that costs you the race.

The same pattern shows up in “krzyknąć” (to let out one shout, versus “krzyczeć,” to be shouting) and “puknąć” (to knock once, versus “pukać,” to be knocking). Spotting “-nąć” on an action verb is a strong clue that it happened just once, briefly.