aspect

[shariperkins.livejournal.com]

I am just learning about aspect, and have to write out the following paragraph in present, past, and future. Is this correct? I'm feeling a but confused and would love some input. I'm a very new student of Russian, and wish that I were much farther along... Thank you so much.

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Anna opens the window and looks into the garden. Then she gets the newspaper and reads it. Then she takes a pen and writes a letter. Then she meets her brother in town and they decide to see a flim.

Present Tense:
Анна открывает окно и смотрит в сад. Потом, она получает газету и её читает. Потом она берёт ручку и пишет письмо. Потом она встречает её брата в городе и они решает посмотреть филм.

Past Tense:
Анна открыла окно и посмотрела в сад. Потом, она получила газету и её прочитала. Потом она взяла ручку и написала письмо. Потом она встретила её брата в городе и они решили посмотреть филм.

Future:
Анна откроет окно и посмотрит в сад. Потом, она получит газету и её прочитает. Потом она бозьмёт ручку и напишет письмо. Потом она встретит её брата в городе и они решат посмотреть филм.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/celsium_/]

no филм - correct фильм
no бозьмёт - возьмёт

the rest is ok.

[shariperkins.livejournal.com]

Thank you. The б was a typo. Problem with using translit.ru to type. :-) And thank you for reminding me of the soft sign.

[voblic.livejournal.com]

Потом, она получает газету и её читает
Лучше сказать так:"Потом, она получает газету и читает её.

Потом она встречает её брата в городе и они решает посмотреть филм.

Потом она встречает своего брата в городе и они решают посмотреть фильм.
В остальных предложениях те же ошибки.
К сожалению, по-английски я неплохо понимаю, но изъясняюсь с большим трудом.

[shariperkins.livejournal.com]

большое спасибо. Learning language is very difficult . . . I wish I could be immersed in Russian.

[cema.livejournal.com]

Dripping Russian all over the place... Unfortunately, Russian has several very difficult spots, which seem to be very serious for adult learners. But overall, it's fun.

[shariperkins.livejournal.com]

Speaking of immersion in Russian -- in this community is it acceptable to ask for personal experience of various Russian immersion programs -- Middlebury, for example, and particularly language institutes in Moscow?

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Why not?

[belacane.livejournal.com]

what would you say the difficult spots are?

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

I have to remind that the working language of this community is English. It's OK to answer or post in Russian, but you are expected to provide an English translation. This is because too many Russian learners here are in a very early stage of their study, so they cannot understand an answer entirely in Russian, however useful it might be.

[spiegelland.livejournal.com]

actually you're pretty good -)
just some notes:

Present
Анна открывает окно и смотрит в сад. Потом она получает газету и читает . Потом она берёт ручку и пишет письмо. Потом она встречает брата в городе и они решат посмотреть филм.

Past:
Анна открыла окно и посмотрела в сад. Потом она получила газету и прочитала . Потом она взяла ручку и написала письмо. Потом она встретила брата в городе и они решили посмотреть филм.

Future:
Анна откроет окно и посмотрит в сад. Потом она получит газету и прочитает . Потом она озьмёт ручку и напишет письмо. Потом она встретит брата в городе и они решат посмотреть филм.

[cityn.livejournal.com]

//её брата
своего брата

//они решает посмотреть филм
решают посмотреть фильм

//бозьмёт

Some notes:
//её читает
"читает её" is better

//Потом
'Then' can be translated not only as 'потом', but also as 'затем', so 'затем' in the 3rd sentence will be better.

PS. sorry, I've deleted the message to fix html

[mangiami.livejournal.com]

In Present:
I don't know if you need её before читает. It might be understood. Also, you aren't being consistent with the comma after потом, so be sure to revise that. Also, они решают посмотреть фильм.

Past:
Same errors as above, but verb use looks good (I'm not totally solid on aspect myself, actually, but I just spent a lot of time on it, so I've got a decent handle on it.)

Future:
Same little errors.

Overall, that's very good! :д)

[colonelrabin.livejournal.com]

Commas after "потом" are not necessary in these Russian phrases.

[brocster.livejournal.com]

Good job overall. The necessary grammatical and orthographic corrections have already been made, but I thought I'd throw in a word or two regarding aspect -- since that was pretty much the topic of your post. You wrote that you're just learning about aspect, so I don't know if what I'm about to say will make any sense or not (if not, please let me know), but here goes.

In the present tense, everything is fairly straightforward, since there's only one aspectual choice (if you can consider having only one option as a "choice" :-)). In the past and future, though, you will need to decide between imperfective and perfective verbal forms.

In your first sentence (with the garden and window), you would definitely want to use a perfective verb for "to open", since the process of opening the window needs to be completed (hence perfective) before Anna can look out onto the garden. The process of "looking," however, does not necessarily have to be perfective, since there's no other action (in the context you provided) that is dependent upon Anna finishing her "looking". You could thus use either imperfective or perfective here. In other words:

Аннa открылa окно и смотрелa в сaд.

I think it would sound better with some sort of temporal adverb (so it's not an "exact" translation)... like this:

Аннa открылa окно и долго смотрелa в сaд.

With the adverb долго, you can only use an imperfective, since you're emphasizing the duration of the action (i.e., that it took a little while). With or without долго, though, the imperfective would stress the fact that Anna spent some time looking at the garden.

Alternately, the use of the perfective посмотрелa could imply a sense of "Anna opened the window, took a (quick) look out at the garden, and then went on with the other business at hand." In other words, she didn't sit back, relax and enjoy the view from the window for a while.

The future imperfective option would be:

Аннa откроет окно и будет смотреть в сaд.

Once again, you're emphasizing the duration of the action by using an imperfective verb.


You can do the same thing with the newspaper. Of course, first she has to get it perfectively, since, once again, the process of "getting" the newspaper must be completed before she can begin reading it. Once she has it, though, she can either spend some time reading through it:

Потом онa получилa (or, perhaps better, взялa гaзету or even сходилa зa гaзетой, if she had to go somewhere to get/buy it) гaзету и читaлa её.

...or she can completely read through the entire newspaper from cover to cover (by using the perfective прочитaлa). The choice is yours -- imperfective (duration) vs. perfective (completion).

The same possibility exists with the future:

Потом онa получит (возьмёт гaзету/сходит зa гaзетой) гaзету и будет её читaть.


With the letter, she can either completely finish writing it -- нaписaлa/нaпишет письмо -- or she can simply spend some time writing it (without reference to whether she actually completed it or not) -- писaлa/будет писaть письмо.


With the final sentence, perfective verbs are more likely, since Anna and her brother will need to finish their decision process in order to see the film. You could, however, emphasize that Anna and her brother are indecisive individuals by using an imperfective verb:

...и они (долго) решaли/будут решaть, кaкой фильм посмотреть.

(I hope you don't mind that I changed the end of your sentence a bit... because they're being indecisive about which film to see, hence the кaкой.)


Well, I hope that was understandable. Let me know if you have any questions.

Good luck with Russian!

- Andrew : )

[shariperkins.livejournal.com]

It makes a lot of sense . . . and it is good to have some ideas of how to "color" and make what I am writing more specific . . . as well as give it more variety. I don't mind the changes at all -- they are informative. Thank you for your help.

[g0mez.livejournal.com]

Perhaps i'm missing something, but

"Потом, она получает газету" sound sooo weird. It literally means "then she takes the newspaper from the hands of the paperboy". "Потом она достает газету" makes much more sense.

[shariperkins.livejournal.com]

Ahh . . . it is the limited vocabulary we have been taught so far in the course. I am sure your option is better.

[mithgol.livejournal.com]

You may also wish to translate some of “then” as “затéм” instead of “потóм”, just to demonstrate how rich your thesaurus is ;-)

And, yes, here you don't need commas after “потóм”.