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[kalaus.livejournal.com]

Those who find Russian aspectual usage a language-learner's nightmare might want to take a look at this essay:
Russian Aspectual Decision-Making (by Benjamin Sher)

Comments

[devinshire.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting this. I've saved it to read later. It looks like it will be quite useful to me.

[mopexod.livejournal.com]

Really interesting, even for a russian native speaker.

[fox-c.livejournal.com]

Very interesting article and I think that he makes some good points though some of the terms he used seemed a bit obscure for a "practical guide".

Trying to read transliterated Russian drives me batty

[yk4ever.livejournal.com]

bah! I just cant fit this into my head.
How can a man who's used to deal with thirteen tenses since his birth have trouble choosing between perfective and imperfective aspects? Such decision can always be done using pure logic, no metaphysics required.

[fox-c.livejournal.com]

He does make it a little more difficult than it has to be, ok a lot more difficult, but he makes some *really* good points.

I personally abide by a lot of the rules he say are 'ridiculous', like the present-tense example: I was taught that if you conjugate a perfective verb you automatically land yourself in the future. Is this wrong?

It seems to me what he's trying to say in that instance instead is that you can combine verbs using an imperfective verb conjugated in the present tense plus a perfective verb in the infinitive, and have that work just fine. (will give examples when I can get my Russian character set back).

Derek Offord's Modern Russian explains aspect very well.