Introduction to Verbal Aspect in Russian: Which verb form to use? Learn strategies and hacks

This is part one of my three part series on Verbal Aspect. Russian verbs have two versions, when you need which depends on the concept and it can be VERY confusing knowing when to use perfective vs imperfective.
But don't you worry! I will break this down for you and give you LOTS of practice. By the end of this series you won't feel confused at all.
To get the most out of these videos I recommend downloading the accompanying worksheet. It has lots of useful information and exercises.
russianiac.wor...
Trying to learn Russian? I taught myself Russian and my specialty is helping learners JUST LIKE YOU reach their goals in the language. I have a Master's degree in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching in Russian and have been teaching Russian in American universities since 2010.
For tutoring inquiries, please email me: [e-mail].
Support me on Patreon! Patrons get access to extra educational materials, group chats and conversation clubs. PLUS, your support will allow me to be an online teacher and content creator FULL TIME (my dream!)
patreon.com/us...
Понравилось видео? Хотите учиться английскому у меня? Поддержите меня на Boosty! Там вы найдёте эксклюзивные материалы обо мне НА ПОНЯТНОМ АНГЛИЙСКОМ. Мои члены на Boosty получают доступ к личному со мной чату, где вы можете задавать вопросы о переводах и грамматике. Также у вас будет возможность общаться с англо-говорящими в нашем разговорном клубе!
boosty.to/coll...
My blog: russianiac.wordpress.com
Instagram: collegerussian

[@muchachol]

Your explanations are so good that Russian seems (almost) an easy language ) Thanks, teacher 👍🏻

[@vrmartin202]

😂 почти ;)

[@todesque]

Fully agree with you Janie! Cases and verbs of motion are by far NOT the most complex thing about Russian grammar. Am still struggling with verbal aspect. There are times I'm convinced I fully understand it, and then it slips away from me. Quite frustrating. Thank you for raising this subject!

[@milivojmilosevic1172]

I would like to share a few thoughts on this. It might help somebody. I would recommend concentrating first on the imperfective form. It is the natural form of the verb. It denotes the general, unfocused meaning of a verb without any attempt to imply completion, repetition, time limit. Just the pure general action implied by the verb. The perfective form of the verb however is focused, laser like, on a specific, single, completed action, and generally uses a prefix to signify perfectiveness. eg in serbo-croatian to drink: piti (imp)/ popiti (perf) Hope it helps.

[@yashagarwal8741]

Thanks for the video. Sometimes my native language Hindi makes Russian easier for me cause of the concept of aspects. A tip for those who still are suffering English has 4 tenses past present future -1 future -2(the two future tenses merged in most modern dialects) so English has 3 aspects. simple/ habitual - as I write, I wrote , I will write , I shall write for habitual actions. progressive - shows and actions happening already while in Russian уже (+imperfective) or ещё(+ imperfective gives that sense)(if we want to explicitly mention) for those, speaking a romance language it is like stare + gerundo or estar + a +infinitvo. In many languages the first two generally merges for an imperfective form. example I am writing , I was writing , I will be writing , I shall be writing. Perfective aspect - this shows a completed action in past or future in reality present perfect is only a general perfect tense which is used for more recent events while past perfect is for those events which preceed another event like i had written my homework when he entered the room. future perfect is for events in future we are expecting to be finished. used with to have + past participle. In old russian the aspect and tense system used to be complex which got simplified over time.

[@klausfligge3499]

Привет из Берлина ❤️

[@howjaneylearned]

Привет Клаус!

[@vrmartin202]

Even when you think you know, Janey will expand your understanding with better and more memorable explanations.

[@markmclawhon8039]

Mrs. Janey, I graduated from the Russian Basic Course at the Defense Language Institute in 1999 and have considered myself a student of Russian ever since. This was by far the best and clearest explanation of verbal aspect I've ever seen. I wish you had been around when I was going through DLI. Please keep up the fantastic work. молодец!

[@howjaneylearned]

Yes! I’ve had many DLI students over the years. I specialize in helping people get their threes on the DLPT and improve their OPI scores. Granted, I don’t talk about it much on my channel cuz people love to think I work for ЦРУ. But anyhow, I made many of these advanced grammar videos with people like yourself in mind. People who are fluent but who need to tidy up their grammar.

[@markmclawhon8039]

Yes Ma'am, I can see from your videos how helpful your teaching stiyle would be for the DLPT. I just signed up for you Patreon group and look forward to studying with you. большое спасибо! @@howjaneylearned

[@MaksymMinenko]

Что ты делал вчера? = What were you doing yesterday? Что ты сделал вчера? = What did you do yesterday?

[@galaxydave3807]

❓

[@mienoolennfhouskka4697]

Что ты делал? - означает процесс, который может не иметь логического завершения, а также какое-то количество действий, которые совершил кто-либо за день. Т.е. это перечисление занятий, например: помыл посуду, прочел книгу ( все имеет завершенность); мыл посуду, читал книгу ( процессы не имеют завершенности, они буду повторяться из-за дня в день) Что ты сделал? - может иметь значение первого выражения, т.е. интересуется. Чаще всего конкретизирует, процесс имеет результат. Также может употребляться как укор, любопытство - но опять же, процесс полностью завершён и не имеет продолжения.

[@MaxGogleMogle]

22:31 "Будем посмотреть" (вместо "посмотрим") - молодежный слэнг 😀 Легкая неправильность тут придает некоторую "забавность", как считают некоторые.

[@howjaneylearned]

режет уши!

[@MaxGogleMogle]

@@howjaneylearned 😀

[@MaxGogleMogle]

@@howjaneylearned То же самое, слэнг - "Вас тут не стояло" 😀 Контекст: очередь в магазине, смысл выражения: кто-то хочет получить что-то, не имея на это права. 😀

[@MaxGogleMogle]

@@howjaneylearned У Вас от природы "чувство языка".... возможно, гены, т.е. на уровне ДНК 😎 еще со времен PIE - праиндоевропейского языка с его 8-ю падежами и соотв. с его более 200 отглагольных форм по падежам, числам, родам и временам. Я как-то задался целью в оригинале прочитать надпись на санскрите (санскрит - наследник PIE, как и другие индоевропейские языки, но санскрит ближе всего к оригиналу - PIE, потом - литовский язык и славянские языки, потом - языки германской группы) на знаменитой "железной колонне" в Дели, Индия, которой более 1600 лет (!!!) - воздвигнута в 415 году н.э. аж, простояла все это время в тропическом влажном климате Индии (!!!!) и на ней НЕТ ржавчины, представляете ?! 😳 Каков же был мой ВОСТОРГ, когда я смог прочитать в оригинале, на санскрите, надпись на ней в алфавите деванагари, без словаря: "Царь Чандра, прекрасный, как полная Луна, воздвиг эту колонну.... " (с) и т.д. Причем, я смог понять игру слов: "Чандра" тут и имя собственное царя, и "Луна" ("Чендра") как имя нарицательное 😎 После чего, мне стало понятно название лунного спутника, который запустила Индия к Луне" - "Чандраян" - "Лунник" 😎 И кстати, я понял, что ВЕСЬ русский мат - т.е. обсценная лексика, имеет в санскрите БУКВАЛЬНОЕ значение и прямые когнаты с русским- с незначительными вариациями ТОЛЬКО😃 Например, русское слово "дурак/дура" БУКВАЛЬНО - "мелкая душонка", "дур атма" 😀 Слово из 3-х букв имеет буквальное значение "шип, колючка, иголка хвои" 😀😀😀 Вся остальная обсценная лексика в русском, впрочем, как и ВСЯ родственная иерархия - "сноха", "зять", "деверь", "шурин" и т.д. имеет прямые когнаты в санскрите ! Видимо, у Вас примерно то же самое - "тяга к корням" инстинктивная, а потому такая идеальная фонетика и вообще "чувство языка" 😎

[@user-vb9sh7wl9q]

Представим такой диалог: - Ты только что СКАЗАЛА, что любишь его! - Я такого не ГОВОРИЛА! Я не могла такое СКАЗАТЬ! Как вам такое?)

[@MaxGogleMogle]

Печально нам такое .....

[@MaksymMinenko]

😀

[@mohdalijohar3647]

Привет из Малайзии❤

[@yiv1672]

Hello. I don't think we use this phrase "Что ты сделал вчера?" in neutral context in Russian. We can ask "Что ты делал вчера"? And the answer can be both: "Я вчера учил стихотворение" и "Я вчера выучил стихотворение". We can use "сделал + вчера" in a more aggressive context: "Ты вчера хоть что-нибудь сделал??"

[@howjaneylearned]

Did you watch the whole video? I address this.

[@yiv1672]

@@howjaneylearned Sure! I mean in the beginning you ask what these two sentences mean to a native speaker and it seems "Что ты сделал вчера" is a less natural phrase without a broader context. Probably because of "что + делать" (or probably because of "что + any verb or most of verbs"), since it implies a request for information (we are interested in naming an action rather than anything else) and it usually is conveyed by the imperfective. "Что ты делал вчера?" - is an independent question (you don't need to broad the context, you can easily start a conversation with this phrase, for example) whereas "Что ты сделал вчера?" requires some additional context, for example " А: Вчера я много отдыхал и спал. Б: Да? Это, конечно, здорово! А что-нибудь полезное ты вообще вчера сделал?".

[@howjaneylearned]

Right, it would be a very strange question to start a conversation with :)

[@kostyp5489]

Well, that went complex very fast.

[@howjaneylearned]

добро пожаловать в русскую грамматику! Ты попал!

[@anshanshtiwari8898]

18:03 when you forgot to change the language to English in the text to speech. 😂

[@Armin_Only]

Привет Джейни ✌😊

[@howjaneylearned]

Привет! Как жизнь?

[@Armin_Only]

@@howjaneylearned хорошо, сейчас еду с работы, как у тебя дела? Как ребятишки? 🤗

[@QuizmasterLaw]

perfective for completed actions, they are perfected. imperfective for ongoing actions. simple past=perfective e.g.; if it's a COMPLETED action it's perfective. Otherwise imperfective I'm sure there are exceptions and we could construct an action which started three years ago ended two years ago and use either perfective or imperfective on that, or better where the possibly completed action might recur, but then it would be better to use imperfective. this is not exam advice it's talk bad russian but less bad than most other non native speakers.

[@TheAkkb]

Hi, dear teacher! I am new here, I never heard how russian is being taught and I wonder as a native russian how do you explain perfect aspects of verbs. You never mentioned perfect form of tense in English. I mean it would be much better to use longer samples and show context of the idea. Example: Вечером я пойду покупать новые книги, потому что эти я уже почти все прочитал. I go shopping tonight new books, because I have read all the books I have got already." I feel like you lose the meaning of "perfect" by american habbit to simplify past tense. Meanwhile the perfect tense always affects current situation like: "Why don't you answer the question, have done your homework?" The aspects of the verbs in Russian can be omitted as in English: "Hewston, I've got a problem!"

[@HelpMyRussian]

-ты мыла голову? -да, мыла. Incomplete action😮😮 Мы прожили ( perfective) в России долго, 5 лет! ( долго is not a trigger for the aspect. Мои родители никогда не скажут «я люблю тебя» is also possible

[@howjaneylearned]

Yes, in the first example this is just a константация факта. We're not interested in the result. Не скажут is possible but it would be translated as "They WILL never say". English-brained students think they are saying, "my parents never SAY I love you". They don't realize that говорить can translate as both "to speak" and "to say".

[@MaksymMinenko]

That's an interesting example because мыла is imperfective, in fact (помыла или вымыла being the perfective form). So, technically you're asking about the process, when you're obviously interested in the result. But native speakers do say it that way often. I guess just because it's easier (shorter) to say it.

[@Alimuratakin]

Worksheet link doesn’t seem to work anymore. Any suggestion where to get it?

[@howjaneylearned]

My Patreon! Plus many many many more 😊 My patreon link should be on my home page of KZbin

[@1e0a47]

Better pairs could be: говорить/поговорить, сказывать-рассказывать/сказать. The pair говорить/сказать doesn't look related

[@howjaneylearned]

Поговорить has the meaning to talk for a little bit. Same with почитать. Grammatically it behaves like a perfect Ive but it doesn’t carry the meaning of a completed action. There are many verb pairs that don’t look related. For example: брать/взять, положить/класть

[@Alexander.Kravchenko]

@@howjaneylearned > Поговорить has the meaning to talk for a little bit It's maybe true in some rare cases. But usually it doesn't impose any restrictions on a conversation length. For example, a girl may say to her boyfriend: "Нам нужно серьезно поговорить". And it doesn't imply at all that this conversation will be short (or easy)!

[@SlavicLanguage]

You are so cute