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Russian imperfective vs perfective

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zekecoma
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 Message 9 of 17
06 February 2012 at 12:48pm | IP Logged 
I think, that I'm slowly getting it, but will have to learn more words and use lang-8
when I get the vocabulary to practise it.
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Voodie
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 Message 10 of 17
06 February 2012 at 1:16pm | IP Logged 
zekecoma wrote:
What happens, if you will be doing something in the future say (tonight), but you failed to make it successful, or you will not know the
outcome of an event, or action?


Can you give me an example? I'm not sure I got it.

If you mean that the action is set for a particular moment, but the outcome is unknown, you may just use the present tense:

"Завтра я сдаю экзамен" - Tomorrow I'm taking an exam. (the verb "сдавать" is imperfective).

Future Imperfective ("буду сдавать экзамен") is not a mistake, but sounds a little bit redundant.

Future Perfective ("сдам экзамен") usually implies that you will succeed in the exam, so there is a result.

If you're sure that you will fail at the exam, you'll say "я не сдам экзамен".

Come to think of it, that IS kind of tricky :-)
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zekecoma
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 Message 11 of 17
06 February 2012 at 1:28pm | IP Logged 
Я вас сказал. Очень трудно. Спасибо вам. :P

Edited by zekecoma on 06 February 2012 at 1:29pm

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Splog
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 Message 12 of 17
06 February 2012 at 1:36pm | IP Logged 
zekecoma wrote:
So perfective is only when something was done successfully, or will be successful in the
future, everything else use imperfective. What happens, if you will be doing something in
the future say (tonight), but you failed to make it successful, or you will not know the
outcome of an event, or action?


I don't like to use terms like "succeeded" when talking about perfective, since it just confuses people.

Things only started clicking for me when I began to ask whether we "finished" doing something and didn't intend to resume it. If we finished doing something in one go and don't expect to resume where we last left off it is probably perfective: "I ate a hamburger", "She read the letter". This also works in the future, if you intend to start and finish some task in one go: "We will clean the car tomorrow".

If, though, you just stopped without necessarily finishing, and intend to resume at some point, then it is probably best to use an "imperfective" verb. Here are some examples in English: "I only eat hamburgers", "She reads the bible at bed time". This works in the future tense too: "We will clean the car every Wednesday".

So, in the past tense, you decide which to use on whether or not you started and finished something in one go (perfective) or whether you kept plugging away repeatedly (imperfective). In the future tense, you decide which to use based on whether or not you are going to devote one lump of time to something (perfective) or keep coming back to something (imperfective).

In the present tense, though, you always use imperfective. Some folks say this is because the task is "ongoing" if that helps you understand it. My own take on it is that it is just easier to think "present tense is always imperfective" and not try to justify it.

A couple of years back I created a video which explains some of these issues, and that might help a bit. Be warned, though, that once you have grasped the big picture, there are still times where you scratch your head wondering why a given aspect was chosen, and some of these are simply idiomatic and have to be picked up over time.

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zekecoma
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 Message 13 of 17
07 February 2012 at 10:04am | IP Logged 
Splog wrote:
zekecoma wrote:
So perfective is only when something was done
successfully, or will be successful in the
future, everything else use imperfective. What happens, if you will be doing something
in
the future say (tonight), but you failed to make it successful, or you will not know
the
outcome of an event, or action?


I don't like to use terms like "succeeded" when talking about perfective, since it just
confuses people.

Things only started clicking for me when I began to ask whether we "finished" doing
something and didn't intend to resume it. If we finished doing something in one go and
don't expect to resume where we last left off it is probably perfective: "I ate a
hamburger", "She read the letter". This also works in the future, if you intend to
start and finish some task in one go: "We will clean the car tomorrow".

If, though, you just stopped without necessarily finishing, and intend to resume at
some point, then it is probably best to use an "imperfective" verb. Here are some
examples in English: "I only eat hamburgers", "She reads the bible at bed time". This
works in the future tense too: "We will clean the car every Wednesday".

So, in the past tense, you decide which to use on whether or not you started and
finished something in one go (perfective) or whether you kept plugging away repeatedly
(imperfective). In the future tense, you decide which to use based on whether or not
you are going to devote one lump of time to something (perfective) or keep coming back
to something (imperfective).

In the present tense, though, you always use imperfective. Some folks say this is
because the task is "ongoing" if that helps you understand it. My own take on it is
that it is just easier to think "present tense is always imperfective" and not try to
justify it.

A couple of years back I created a
video
which explains some of these issues, and that might help a bit. Be warned,
though, that once you have grasped the big picture, there are still times where you
scratch your head wondering why a given aspect was chosen, and some of these are simply
idiomatic and have to be picked up over time.


Thank you so bloody much. :) Yeah my book and other websites would say "completed" and
that did confuse me. But, when you mention finished, that made it make so much more
sense to me. I believe, that I can finally understand this conception. Sad, that
English doesn't really explain this all to well. But, I won't know, if I managed to
fully understand this aspect stuff, until I have more vocabulary to test it out.
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mrwarper
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 Message 14 of 17
07 February 2012 at 11:47am | IP Logged 
zekecoma wrote:
... my book and other websites would say "completed" and
that did confuse me. But, when you mention finished, that made it make so much more
sense to me...

I have had some moments like that in the past, but I always joked about it saying the same word again and that it somehow changed everything, when it was actually something inside my head all along.
I wonder if you could elaborate on how 'completed' vs 'finished' made such a difference for you? What were you missing out on?
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vonPeterhof
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 Message 15 of 17
07 February 2012 at 6:11pm | IP Logged 
zekecoma wrote:
Я вас сказал.
Did you mean to say "Told you [so]"? The correct way of saying that in Russian would be "Я же говорил" or "Сказал же" (assuming you're male). Don't ask me to explain why, I'm really bad at explaining the usage of aspect :)

Edited by vonPeterhof on 07 February 2012 at 6:12pm

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zekecoma
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 Message 16 of 17
08 February 2012 at 12:16am | IP Logged 
vonPeterhof wrote:
zekecoma wrote:
Я вас сказал.
Did you mean to say "Told you
[so]"? The correct way of saying that in Russian would be "Я же говорил" or "Сказал же"
(assuming you're male). Don't ask me to explain why, I'm really bad at explaining the
usage of aspect :)


"I told you". :P I thought, that it was correct. D:


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