One of the big stumbling blocks when it comes to learning Russian is Russian verbs. The good news is Russian verbs have only three tenses – present, past and future. The bad news is that to make up for such simplicity, most Russian verbs have two aspects – imperfective and perfective. This makes Russian verbs somewhat frustrating to learn.
For example, which of these options should you choose:
Я читал книгу or Я прочитал книгу
Мария будет сдавать экзамены or Мария сдаст экзамены
Александр писал письма or Александр написал письма
While all these sentences are grammatically correct, contextually they are not equal since they imply different outcomes.
The basic rule of perfective v imperfective aspect is that we should use imperfective aspect when talking about an action that
a) Has not or will not be successfully completed
b) Is completed, but the outcome is unknown or uncertain
c) Happens more than once, repeats itself or the action goes in more than one direction
Otherwise, use perfective aspect.
Returning to the examples above, let’s define or describe each situation a bit to see why we use each aspect:
Я читал книгу, а потом заснул (I was reading a book and then fell asleep) – In other words, the action (reading) wasn’t successfully completed – imperfective читать is used.
Я прочитал книгу, а потом заснул (I read the book and then fell asleep) – The speaker finished reading the entire book before going to bed – perfective прочитать is used.
Мария будет сдавать экзамены в университет этим летом (This summer Maria will be taking university entrance exams) – We are not sure whether she will successfully pass the exams – imperfective сдавать is used.
Мария сдаст экзамены в университет, так как она весь год занималась с репетиторами (Maria will pass the university entrance exams because she studies with tutors for the entire year) – Here we express our first belief in Maria’s success by going with the perfective сдать (here: to pass).
Александр писал письма Наташе, Ирине и Светлане каждый день (Every day Alexander wrote letters to Natasha, Irina and Svetlana) – Here the action is repeated; it happens more than once. So we use the imperfective писать.
Александр написал письма Наташе, Ирине и Светлане (Alexander wrote letters to Natasha, Irina and Svetlana) – in this case we assume that Alexander wrote one letter each to three girls (maybe hedging his bets?), but did this only once (maybe they found out about each other?) Whatever Alexander’s reasons, we use the perfective написать in this situation.
Now let’s practice. Choose the correct verb in each of the sentences below:
Каждую зиму я болею/заболею гриппом.
Every winter I become sick with flu.
(Check conjugation/aspect tables for the verb pair болеть/заболеть)
Не забудь, к приходу гостей надо сварить/варить борщ.
Don’t forget to make borsht by the time the guests arrive.
(Check conjugation/aspect tables for the verb pair варить/сварить)
Уже лето на дворе, а ты всё мёрзнешь/замёрзнешь.
It’s summer already and you still feel cold.
(Check conjugation/aspect tables for the verb pair мёрзнуть/замёрзнуть)
Сергей мне нравился/понравился c первого взгляда.
I liked Sergey ever since I first saw him.
(Check conjugation/aspect tables for the verb pair нравиться/понравиться)
Когда она улыбалась/улыбнулась, у неё на щеках появлялись ямочки.
When she smiled, dimples appeared on her cheeks.
(Check conjugation/aspect tables for the verb pair улыбаться/улыбнуться)
This is one of the major pitfalls in learning Russian, so discussion of this topic is always helpful.
I only recently started learning russian so I hate it when you guys make it sound daunting and complex…ps. I,ve no idea what your talking about!
у меня вопрос (уже!)
[see examples from the blog: Я читал книгу, а потом заснул (I was reading a book and then fell asleep) – vs: Я прочитал книгу, а потом заснул (I read the book and then fell asleep).] What if someone has read some of a book, but they read as much as they planned or wanted to – Then we would use perfective? (because they finished as much as they wanted / planned). Or should we ONLY use perfective if in fact the entire book was completed?
The perfective verb for partial reading is “я почитал книгу” (I read some of the book). Yes, it’s also perfective because the action is complete.
Very good and I think I should spend more time talking about various prefixes. Much of Russian language’s beauty and flexibility is in prefixes and suffixes.
Excellent, Sati! What a great question. See masteradmin’s answer for this particular case.
Where are the solutions?
Here they are:
Каждую зиму я болею гриппом.
Не забудь, к приходу гостей надо сварить борщ.
Уже лето на дворе, а ты всё мёрзнешь.
Сергей мне понравился c первого взгляда.
Когда она улыбнулась, у неё на щеках появлялись ямочки.
These are all correct except for the last one. I admit that the last sentence was the tricky one. We need to look at the first verb in it, улыбнулась. Since it’s perfective and is directly related to the second verb through cause-effect, we should use появились here, not the imperfective появлялись. Compare to this sentence – когда она улыбалась, у нее на щеках появлялись ямочки.
Verbal aspect is a challenging grammar topic, but it’s essential to mastering Russian.
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