Subjunctive and Imperative Mood

In Russian language, along with verbs of indicative mood there are also verbs of subjunctive and imperative mood.

Verbs of subjunctive mood designate actions which one wants to happen, or just possible ones, under certain circumstances. A sentence containing subjunctive verbs shows that an action has not happen, but it could have happened if certain circumstances took place. Look at an example:

Я бы пошёл в кино, если бы у меня был билет.
I would have gone to the movie, if I had had a ticket.

Adding the particle "бы", either near a verb, or at any other place in a sentence, forms the subjunctive mood of a verb.

 

Remember: The particle "бы" and a verb are always written separately: прыгал бы, нарисовал бы.

The verbs of subjunctive mood change in number:

двигался бы - singular
двигались бы - plural

At the same time, singular verbs change in person.

он двигался бы - he would have moved
она двигалась бы - she would have moved
оно двигалось бы - it would have moved

In other words, the verbs of subjunctive mood are usually predicates and agree with a subject in person and number.

subject     Старик

и сейчас не

predicate    стал бы вырубать кусты.

 

Remember: The verbs in subjunctive mood are always in the past tense.

Next page > Imperative Mood of Russian Verbs > Page 1, 2

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