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Russian Imperfective and Perfective | ||
Tags: Verbs/Conjugation | Russian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| Polyglotted Triglot Newbie Joined 5010 days ago 35 posts - 40 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Russian, Swedish, Mandarin | Message 1 of 4 08 September 2010 at 2:30am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm learning the grammar of the imperfective and perfective aspects in the past and future tenses in Russian at the moment. I can't quite get some of the examples of when one is used over another. Are the uses basically the same as the Spanish imperfect and perfect tenses for the past, except with different verbs rather than different endings?
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| RedKing'sDream Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5580 days ago 53 posts - 68 votes  Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: Ukrainian | Message 2 of 4 08 September 2010 at 10:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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This is perhaps the most nuanced part of Russian grammar and almost invariably difficult for speakers of non-Slavic languages to master.
As a brief (but inadequate) rule of thumb, the imperfective is used for actions viewed as being iterative, where the focus is on the duration, or where the action is seen as an incomplete part of larger action or intended action. The perfective is used for actions where the focus is on the completion or result. This description is probably not sufficient to let one predict the correct usage in every case. There are probably some exceptions, some cases in which the intuition is difficult to grasp, some in which the meaning can change depending on the form used, and some cases in the infinitive in which only one form is allowed. I don't know Spanish, but the mapping with French aspect, for example, is not one-to-one, I think. Give me some of the examples and I'll do my best to describe why it's one and not the other. Edited by RedKing'sDream on 08 September 2010 at 10:31pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6220 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 3 of 4 08 September 2010 at 11:58pm | IP Logged | ||
They're almost entirely different. "Imperfect" and "imperfective" sound enough alike to be confusing, but have surprisingly little in common. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| reineke Senior Member United States https://learnalangua Joined 6228 days ago 851 posts - 1008 votes Studies: German | Message 4 of 4 09 September 2010 at 7:24am | IP Logged | ||
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easy peasy
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