The general tendency is for new or emphasized information to come last, so "он не прочитал ни одной книги" would fit that context; but for informal or emotionally colored speech, that tendency can be flipped around: "он ни одной книги не прочитал." So I think either is possible. There's more on word order here: kzbin.info/aero/PLrIkLgUgjNHcRaTtzkvU4px_IbHypxIAf :)

I'd say they could be seen as two ways of referring to the same thing. At a certain point in the history of Russian, [x] followed by [j] turned to [š] - a mutation, or change. From the standpoint of contemporary Russian, comparing сухой to суше, or махать / я машу, you can refer to a consonant alternation х/ш as the result of that historical mutation. :)

@@russiangrammar thank you. Now I see it more clear. Levin and Townsend talk about these changes in their books but it was not very clear how they distinguish them. Thank you again.

I'm not an expert in English grammar, but I've read that "to have done" something is an infinitive form of the present perfect tense. Прочитать is an infinitive in the perfective aspect. In any case, usage wouldn't always map precisely - 'нам надо прочитать весь роман' can mean simply "we have to read the whole novel," without the nuance of "have to have read it" (before some other action or time).

Songs are a great way to reinforce what may seem dry in the textbooks. )

I did have to do some editing though, couldn't manage it in one breath 🤣

The stem of русский is essentially a hard stem (ending in a hard consonant): that's why we have forms like русского, русская, русскую, etc. But we spell русский (and русским, русских, русскими) with и because of the 7-letter spelling rule: instead of ы, write и after these 7 letters: к г х ш щ ч ж. This also explains хорошая but хороший. There's more about the 7-letter rule here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hInGk6xvqc52ftk - and check this playlist for videos about 2 other spelling rules and a dopey mnemonic for remembering the letters: kzbin.info/aero/PLrIkLgUgjNHcpDC9GvYU0C9EW-9vpAz7w

@@russiangrammar ok thankyou. i love your lessons by the way. The spelling rules are so funny because some of them interact to change the outcome. and I'm getting a good instinctual understanding for most of it. But now i'm trying to delve into the weeds of genitive etc. Anyway thankyou.

Пожалуйста! :)

Yes, there's a handful of words where you may hear a long soft ж as an alternate acceptable pronunciation to a hard ж. This page at Moscow State University on phonetics mentions езжу, визжание, and позже; you can also hear дрожжи with soft ж. Some sources say the soft variant was more typical of educated speakers in Moscow, but that the 'hard' pronunciation is becoming more common. www.philol.msu.ru/~fonetica/orfoepija/tabl/zzh.htm

@@russiangrammar Got it, thank you! Btw, I got the book you suggested about aspects in Russian verbs and it’s excellent. Thank you for your great work and suggestions!!!

Пожалуйста! :)

Это просто остатки среднерусского (московского) говора.

In languages with vowel harmony, like Finnish, the vowel in an adjacent syllable could play a role; but here I think it's that some Russian vowel *sounds* are sometimes influenced by whether adjacent *consonants* are hard or soft. Consider how in есть the tongue rises a little during the vowel in anticipation of the soft cluster -сть: that's why the vowel in есть is closer to the vowel in English "paste/laced," while the vowel in ест is closer to English "yes." So you're on the right track: the tongue stays high before the soft т in лететь, whereas it may drop a bit in anticipation of the hard т in летать. It's subtle though and can depend on rate of speech and individual variation. Try going to youglish.com, choose Russian, and search for летать. I listened to about 25 examples and heard /l'itat'/ from some speakers, but a slightly "lower" /l'ıtat'/ from others. Keep in mind that there isn't a distinct й sound in лететь, it's just [l'it'et']. And also that I'm not a native speaker, so checking for natural pronunciations in context at Youglish is always a good idea. 🙂

Your thoughtful questions lead us to a point perhaps not emphasized enough: the choice (of ходить vs идти/пойти, etc) is often a matter of the context of a narrative (not just objective facts of where someone is). Где был Толя вчера вечером? -Он ходил на концерт. We use ходить since he's no longer at the concert. He may have returned home, he may be somewhere else, we may not know; but we can assume he's not still at the concert, so the multidirectional ходить makes sense. Где был Толя вчера вечером? -Сразу после лекции он пошёл на концерт, а потом - не знаю, он не звонил. "Right after the lecture he went to a concert, but then, I don't know, he didn't call." In this narrative we have in mind that he headed off to a concert (one direction!); but we don't specify where he is now (maybe at Olya's, maybe even back at home, or maybe we're worried because we don't know). |--> .... Note that пошёл specifies setting out, heading off, the start of motion - not necessarily arrival! Он пошёл в кино = he went to the movies (he could still be on his way, or still there, we may not know or care). Она поехала в Испанию could mean she's still there, or could be just be the start of a story of her trip there. We'd need more context to flesh it out. Participation with interesting, probing, challenging questions does indeed warm a teacher's heart. So thank you for this! ☺️

Your three paragraphs show exactly the ONE hard thing to understand. We do have three points of reference • The starting point where the actor heads off • The assumed target position • Everything after that Your first paragraph with ходить tells us definitely that the actor is beyond the target position, so it’s not unidirectional anymore. Check! The third paragraph says that the actor is either somewhere between the starting point and the assumed target position or after having arrived still at the target position, we don’t know. But it is definitely uni-directional because the actor did not cross the red line to go beyond the target position. Check! But the second paragraph is the challenge. If we are admitting that we don’t know where he could have gone after the concert and even caring whether something happened to him because he didn’t call, aren’t we acknowledging that he must have crossed the red line and must have stepped beyond the target position, and therefore ходить would be more appropriate, because it’s not a ‘straight-line’ unidirectional motion anymore. At least that’s what the context is telling us. I would have imagined that there is no blurry line and that you are • either between the two clearly defined points (or respectively at the target point) • or you are beyond that From the moment the actor leaves the starting point we can never know where s/he actually is because we didn’t go with them. So the actual current position will always be an unknown variable. Could be before the target position, at the target position or even after. Everything is speculation, as it were! So that begs the question which fact is eventually the real deciding factor whether to use the unidirectional or the multidirectional version of the verb? Is it our interpretation, our assumption, of whether the actor has passed the red line, the end of the concert? What else is available to us that could help us in the decision making? I don’t see any other helpful hidden hint! That would imply that as soon as we assume the actor has crossed this line we had to use a multidirectional verb.

Hoping I've understood your question correctly... In the 2nd paragraph, using пошёл doesn't acknowledge he reached (or left) the destination (if that's what you mean by 'red line'?); it states someone has "set off" in one general direction, the motion has begun, and nothing else. You can also use пойти or поехать to describe separate "legs" of a trip (я пошёл в библиотеку, потом пошёл в кафе, потом на концерт...). If we know, or assume the person has made a round trip, we express that action with multidirectional ходить. Please let me know if I'm missing something! :)

Sorry for the misunderstanding, but I wasn’t actually referring to the verb per se, but rather to your mental map: “Right after the lecture he went to a concert, but then, I don’t know… “ To me it sounded like the ‘but then’ followed up on ‘the concert’. That was what I meant by acknowledging the fact that the concert (the target destination / the red line between unidirectional and multidirectional ;-) was over or at least in the mental past, and you where thinking what could have happened to the actor afterwards. But it seems that with ‘but then’ you were referring to the point ‘he went off (wherever, it does not matter)’ -> but then, after he had left, you didn’t know… And that is clearly happening before the target position (the concert). This makes sense now ;-) So the second paragraph does actually explain the same pattern than the third paragraph. I was under the impression that the second paragraph is some kind of ‘hybrid overlap’ that is referencing both sides of the ‘red line’ (before the concert and after the concert). Thanks for clarifying. I hope I could bring across my perceived layout of the mental map you provided.

With "through" as the exception that proves the rule! 🤣

Идти and ехать express going in one general direction - motion in progress - in both the present and the past, much like "being on the way" somewhere in English. Когда мы шли домой, мы говорили о фильме. When we were walking/going home, we talked about the movie. Когда я ехал в Испанию, я думал о своих друзьях. When I was going/on the way to Spain, I thought about my friends. Keep in mind that пойти and поехать are perfective, so they don't have present tense meaning; what looks like a present form has future meaning: Завтра пойду к врачу. Tomorrow I'll go to the doctor. Через неделю поедем в Индию. In a week we'll go to India. Verbs of motion are a complex topic; that's why I created modules with more complete coverage and exercises at www.tips4russian.com (23 videos with exercises on motion verbs without prefixes, 19 videos with exercises on motion verbs with prefixes). You're welcome to visit the 3 free sample lessons at www.tips4russian.com/courses/motion-verbs-i/ 🙂

Мы ехали в Сочи is like English "we were on our way to Sochi..." and actually doesn't say anything about where you are now. It could be the beginning of a story about something that happened as you were on the way; or it could be an answer to a question about where you were, or what you were doing, at a particular time.

So interesting look how people learning your native language 😁

A video was mistakenly omitted from the playlist. I've added an updated version which you can find here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pYDVooZ-lK1lp8U. Thanks for letting me know. :)