Уро́к 4
4.6 Language and Speech – Past tense, Part 3: Don’t DO it!
Russian doesn’t “DO” it
Notice in the examples above that in Russian there are NO ‘helping’ verbs, like ‘is’, ‘was’, ‘has been’, etc. There is, likewise, no ‘do’ in questions or in statements of negation. Russian is REALLY SIMPLE when it comes to verbs. You have to learn present tense conjugation, but you never need ‘helping’ verbs of any kind. You JUST just the verbs themselves. Consider the Russian and the English translations below. Don’t USE DO (in Russian)!!! I say this because you will want to.
- Вы говори́те по-ру́сски?
‘Do you speak Russian?’ - Да, говорю́.
‘Yes, I do.’ - Я никогда́ не была́ в Кана́де.
‘I have never been in (to) Canada.’ - Вы рабо́тали в э́том рестора́не?
‘Did you work in this restaurant?’ - Нет, я не рабо́тал в э́том, а в том.
‘No, I didn’t work in this one, but in that one.’ - Что вы де́лали?
What were you doing? (-or- What did you do?) - Я ничего́ не де́лала.
I wasn’t doing anything (-or- I didn’t do anything.)
