Verbs - Imperfective/Perfective (future)
If you haven’t read the post about verbs in general, read it here!
Imperfective and perfective verbs… Distinguishing the difference between them seems to be the hard part in Russian for those who study it. We have something like this in English, but it’s not too difficult. Some languages like Spanish have special forms and changes (imperfective verbs… oh the dread when I was learning this!).
So what are imperfective and perfective verbs? Their meanings don’t change, but you have to use the proper form.
Here are some examples in English:
- I used to learn algebra at this school. (Imperfective because it was a repetitive action in the past)
- I learned algebra at this school. (Perfective because the action of learning is over)
- I will learn algebra at this school. (Both imperfective and perfective, but most likely imperfective because you don’t know if this action of learning will completely end or not)
- I will finish learning algebra at this school. (Perfective because you know that this will be the last time this person is learning algebra)
- He was reading the book. (Imperfective because he is not done reading the book)
- He read the book. (Perfective because he completely read the book)
- He will read the book. (Both or possibly imperfective, because again, you don’t know if he will just read it or if he will finish reading it)
- He will finish reading the book. (Perfective. You are sure that he will completely finish reading the book)
To give the idea that an action was “imperfect” (an action is still imcomplete or was a repeated process), all you have to do in English is add “used to” or “was/were” and add an -ing to the verb if you’re using the latter (I know there are more variations to this, I won’t write all of them).
For the future tense, you just add “will” with an infinitive or use “finish” and -ing. However in English, you won’t be quite sure if a person would complete an action or not. This is the difference between English and Russian. In Russian, you can tell if a person completed their action or not, AND if they will complete an action or not in the future.
Russian has a different set of verbs called the Perfective verbs (also called “perfective aspect”). They have the same meaning as the imperfective verbs, but the perfective verbs are used ONLY when you want to say that someone completed an action, or will complete an action.
You have to know this rule: Russian perfective verbs do not have present tense forms, but only have past and future tense forms.
Why don’t they have present tense forms? You only use the perfective aspect when you are sure that something was completely done, or when you know that an action will be done all the way to the end. It’s impossible to say that an action will be completed in the present (ahhh this is mind boggling… leave comments or messages if you don’t quite understand it. I’ll be glad to explain).
If you look at the English examples above, the imperfective sentences give the image that something was repeated or that something isn’t completely finished. That’s where you use the imperfective verbs.
Today we’ll only go over the future tense of the perfective Russian verbs.
Until this post, I’ve been giving examples and charts of verbs in their imperfective form (хо́теть, рабо́тать, люби́ть, etc.). Here’s another one for you for today!
You can make sentences like…
Я чита́ю кни́гу. - I’m reading a book
Он чита́ет журна́л. - He’s reading a magazine.
Now how would you say “I will read a book.” or “He will read a magazine.”? It’s easy. If you use the word быть, which means “to be”, you can easily make future tense sentences. Just remember that the latter verb needs to be in its infinitive form.
And putting быть and чита́ть together makes…
And some example sentences…
Я бу́ду чита́ть кни́гу. - I will read a book.
Он бу́дет чита́ть журна́л. - He will read a magazine.
At this point you’re using the verb чита́ть, which is in the imperfective aspect. When you say “я бу́ду чита́ть кни́гу”, you are saying it with the idea of “I’ll read a book but I might not finish it today.”
So what do you do when want to say that you WILL completely finish reading a book? Here’s where you can finally use the perfective aspect.
The perfective aspect of чита́ть is прочита́ть.
Remember the rule? There’s no present tense for perfective verbs.
Я прочита́ю кни́гу. - I will finish reading the book.
Он прочита́ет журна́л. - He’ll completely go through the magazine.
It’s that easy! Now let’s compare the two verbs:
I hope you now understand the difference between the imperfective and perfective aspects and how to use them (in their future tenses)!
- Imperfective aspects don’t have the “aspect” of finishing or completing a task (the action itself, an action going on, an action occurring constantly).
- Perfective aspects have that “aspect” of finishing a task (a completed action, result of an action, certain action).
For the next post, I’ll be talking about the past tense in both aspects.
If you have any questions, leave comments or send a message! :)
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