Practice English Speaking&Listening with: Aspects of Verbs -- Виды глаголов // RUS/ENG subtitles

Hello guys!

This is Natasha.

Today I decided to make a video about the aspects of verbs.

Actually there is such a post on my blog already,

about the aspects of verbs.

And I think that many of you have already read that post.

But if there is someone among you, who don't know yet that I have a blog,

then, please, I invite you to

come to visit me on my blog (www.natashaspeaksrussian.com) and read, learn to read Russian.

You can read a paragraph in Russian

and immediately check if you understood everything well;

because under each paragraph there is a translation in English.

So, today I have decided to just vocalize that post.

I won't say anything new, I will only repeat that which already is written in the post.

I think this will be useful to you,

because I know you need to listen to Russian a lot

before you can learn to understand spoken Russian.

I was looking for a good and short definition of the term " - aspect"

and here is what I found:

Aspect is a verbal category,

showing the character of course of action in time,

expressing the relation of time to its inner limit, result.

The category of aspect is inherent in all Russian verbs in any form.

I found it in the dictionary of linguistic terms.

What have I just read?

What was that?!

I cannot understand why people write with such difficult phrasing

when it is possible to write in a simpler way.

It seems as if they are intentionally trying to write so

that no one can understand.

I will try to explain in simpler terms what verb aspect means and why we need it.

There are two aspects of verbs in the Russian language:

perfective and imperfective.

Why do we need them?

The aspects of verbs help us to specify an action,

i.e. to say that an action is already successfully completed

or continues (or is ongoing);

that an action was a single event

or repetitive.

For example:

Anna writes/is writing a book.

The action (writes) is ongoing.

is an imperfective verb.

Anna writes/is writing a book means, that she is still writing, right?

She is writing. Maybe she was writing yesterday, will write today and will write tomorrow.

Yes, she is still writing.

Anna already wrote a book.

The action is successfully completed.

Anna already wrote a book. A book is written.

is perfective verb.

Pavel jumped on one leg.

The action was a single event, Pavel jumped only once.

The action is completed and it was a single event.

That's why is a perfective verb.

Pavel has been jumping on one leg for an entire hour already.

The action was repeated regularly during the hour

and perhaps will continue. Maybe Pavel will continue jumping for two more hours.

is an imperfective verb.

By the way, because the perfective example was in the past tense,

I could still make this example also in the past tense; but with an imperfective verb.

We can say that Pavel was jumping on one leg an entire hour.

is used in the past tense here as , but it is still an imperfective verb.

And is a perfective verb, he jumped one time - .

So, we use imperfective verbs

when we talk about an prolonged, continuous or repetitive action:

He was sleeping a long time.

You see, here it's a prolonged action. He slept a long time.

She is always late.

Here is a chronic, repetitive action.

She is constantly late, it means every day, when she goes... I don't know, to work

or on a date, or wherever she happens to be going - she is constantly late.

It's always the same, it is repetitive.

I go to work every morning.

Here we have a repetitive action. (i.e. therefore imperfective)

Every morning I go to work. Right?

This morning I go to work, tomorrow morning I will go to work and in fact I constantly go to work: always go, go, go.

We use perfective verbs

when we talk about an completed action or single action:

I read a book.

The action is completed.

The book is read.

It means I had a book and I was reading it, reading, reading for a period of time.

is from the word ,

i.e. it's imperfective verb.

So, I was reading it and I finished reading it - it's already a perfective verb.

That's it, I finished reading. It has been read. I can bring it back to the library.

He cleaned the house.

Again, an action is completed, is a perfective verb.

But we can also say with an imperfective verb: he was cleaning the house.

It means he was cleaning there and then he finished cleaning. It's done and now it's a clean home.

So, he cleaned.

Perfective verb.

She bought bread.

Single completed action.

She came in the store; took some bread; put it in her bag; paid for it and went home - she bought bread.

That's it, she did it once...quickly.

If we would say "she was buying bread" it would likely mean that she came to the store and spent there a lot of time,

choosing the bread to buy and couldn't decide which one to take.

So, she was standing there for two hours and looking at all sorts of bread.

This would be "was buying bread".

And - bought means that's it, it's done; she paid, so she bought.

He pushed me.

Here we have a single action.

He pushed me once.

That's it. Finished.

If we would say, for example, "he was pushing me during the entire lesson"

You can imagine, we have a long time period - the entire lesson

and he was constantly pushing, not one time, but constantly

one time, another time, a third time... he was pushing and pushing. Right. Then it's an imperfective verb.

And "he pushed me" means he pushed me only once. That's it - finished. Perfective verb.

Note!

I know that, for example, "" (imperfective) and "" (perfective) are translated into English the same - "to see".

And because of that English-speakers often think like this:

Ah! That means it doesn't matter which word to use,

both mean the same.

Then they choose one word

and try to change it in some way.

For example, change the ending, to put on different one,

so they could get something close to meaning "have seen".

Guys, it's not like this at all. It's wrong. Don't think like this.

Although the words "" and "" are translated the same,

they are two different words.

Remember this.

I understand that you might get confused by the fact that these words are very similar

and you might even think that all the perfective verbs are similar to the imperfective verbs;

and often it's true, for example:

/ - to read; / - to watch/look; / - to fly/fly away.

But there are also such verb pairs, that are not similar at all, for example:

/ - to tell; / - to put; / - to take.

All these verb pairs are translated into English the same.

But you have to remember that these are different words.

You cannot simply take one and change with another,

you have to choose the right verb aspect,

depending on the type of action you are talking about.

He is putting a book in the bag.

The action is not finished yet, he is still putting it in.

So, here we are talking about the present tense, imagine,

he, some guy, is standing and holding a bag and a book in his hands.

And then he is putting that book into the bag.

Now, in this moment when the action is happening, he is in the act of putting.

Imperfective aspect.

He put a book in the bag.

Here the action is successfully finished; the book is already in the bag.

He isn't holding it in his hands anymore, it's already there in the bag.

OK, I want to give you a few tips that will help you to choose the right verb aspect:

Firstly, if you are not sure which verb aspect to use,

then better choose to say the imperfective aspect.

Its use is more common than the perfective aspect and therefore you have less of a chance to make a mistake.

Secondly, remember that perfective aspect is used only in the past and future tenses.

The perfective verb doesn't have any forms in the present tense.

And that means, that if you talk about something happening now,

you should choose the imperfective verb.

Thirdly, if in your sentence you want to use an adverb

that indicates repeatability

or lack of time constraints

(for example: always, often, constantly, long, sometimes,

every year, every morning, every evening, every hour.)

then, again, choose the imperfective verb.

Let me give you a few more examples.

Let's begin with the examples of imperfective verbs.

We rarely walk together

I usually go to work on foot.

It always takes so long for you to get ready!

Sometimes they watch TV together.

She buys bread every day.

He cleans his apartment regularly.

Good. And now a few examples of perfective verbs.

Tomorrow I will go to the cinema.

Yesterday I finished reading a book.

He arrived two days ago.

Are you already ready?

They watched a new movie yesterday.

She bought milk on Saturday.

He cleaned his room today.

Well, it seems I have told you everything that I wanted to tell you today.

Now I will repeat slowly all the examples from this video.

What will we talk about the next time?

You will see the next Friday.

Thank you for watching, guys!

See you soon! Bye!

Anna writes/is writing a book.

Anna already wrote a book.

Pavel jumped on one leg.

Pavel has been jumping on one leg for an entire hour already.

He was sleeping a long time.

She is always late.

I go to work every morning.

I read a book.

He cleaned the house.

She bought bread.

He pushed me.

He is putting a book in the bag.

He put a book in the bag.

We rarely walk together.

I usually go to work on foot.

It always takes so long for you to get ready!

Sometimes they watch TV together.

She buys bread every day.

He cleans his apartment regularly.

I will go to the cinema tomorrow.

Yesterday I finished reading a book.

He arrived two days ago.

Are you already ready? / Did you get ready?

Yesterday they watched a new movie.

She bought milk on Saturday.

He cleaned his room this morning.