Уро́к 10
10.6 Grammar: Aspect + Adverbs
Люби́мая Грамма́тика
As you may remember, Russian verbs have aspect. They are either – imperfective and perfective. Yeah, this topic did NOT actually go away.
Let’s review:
Imperfective aspect conveys several meanings, among them the most common ones are:
- regularity of the action or general truths, such as “I brush my teeth every every day” or “The seasons change”
- process, for example, I am currently renovating my apartment or Last night I was watching Netflix for 5 hours
- states the fact of something happening in the past with no focus on completion, for instance, I went for a walk or I studies German last year
Perfective aspect indicates the following:
- achievement of the result, for example, I passed an exam
- finishing something, such as, I finished my paper last night
- one-time event that interrupted on-going activity, for example, Somebody knocked on my door, when I was cooking.
Adverbs to the rescue!
In order to figure out when to use which, there ARE some clues and helpers, notably adverbs. For imperfective verbs the most frequent ones are the following. Note, you already know several of these!
- до́лго – for a long time,
- всё вре́мя – all the time
- ка́ждый день – every day
- всегда́ – always,
- ча́сто – often,
- ре́дко – rarely,
- иногда́ – sometimes,
- никогда́ не – never
Imperfective verbs are used in the past, present and future tenses.
Regarding the perfective aspect, remember that they are NEVER used in present tense and, if you think about it, it makes sense. A completed action can never be happening right now. Adverbs can also help you with your decision to use perfective verbs. The most common adverbs used with perfective aspect are the following:
- наконе́ц-то – finally
- уже́ – already
- бы́стро – quickly
- вдруг – all of a sudden
- раз – once
- сра́зу – immediately
- any specific date – (in 1900…; on July 4th 1776…)
Learning these adverbs will help you in starting to recognize and use your люби́мый aspect more effectively! 🙂
