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Past tenses
There is only one past tense. What Russian has instead of tenses is aspect, and it is the hardest thing in the language.
Forming it
Drop the -ть and add -л, then agree with the SUBJECT's gender and number — not with its person.
| он чита́л | he read |
| она́ чита́ла | she read |
| оно́ чита́ло | it read |
| мы / вы / они́ чита́ли | we / you / they read |
Я чита́л if you are a man, я чита́ла if you are a woman. You cannot talk about your own past without declaring your gender — the same trap Hindi sets.
Aspect: the real system
Almost every verb comes as a pair.
| imperfective | perfective |
|---|---|
| чита́ть — to read, be reading | прочита́ть — to read through |
| писа́ть — to write | написа́ть — to get written |
| де́лать — to do | сде́лать — to get done |
| говори́ть — to speak | сказа́ть — to say (different stem entirely) |
- Imperfective: the process, a habit, a repeated action, or an unfinished one.
- Perfective: the whole thing, completed, with a result.
Я чита́л кни́гу — I was reading a book / I used to read it / I read at it. Я прочита́л кни́гу — I read the book, and finished it.
The three-tense trick
Because a perfective verb cannot have a present, the system comes out lopsided:
| imperfective | perfective | |
|---|---|---|
| past | чита́л | прочита́л |
| present | чита́ю | — |
| future | бу́ду чита́ть | прочита́ю |
So прочита́ю, which looks like a present tense, means I will read it. Every learner is caught by this once.
Choosing the prefix
Perfectives are usually made with a prefix, and the prefix often adds meaning of its own: писа́ть → написа́ть (write it), переписа́ть (rewrite), подписа́ть (sign), описа́ть (describe), записа́ть (note down). Each of those then needs its OWN imperfective partner.
This is why Russian vocabulary looks enormous and is actually a small number of roots, prefixed.
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