Verb difference

[zarxos.livejournal.com]

Could someone be so kind as to explain to me the difference between "прожил" and "жил"?

The specific sentence is "Так прожил он еще семь лет." How does this differ from "Так жил он еще семь лет"?

Спасибо!

Comments

[oryx_and_crake]

Прожить is perfective, жить is imperfective. There should be some links about perfective/imperfective issues in the community memories.

[oryx_and_crake]

In this particular context there is probably not much difference. Прожил might imply that the process was finished somehow, e.g. after these 7 years he died. But then again it might not.

[zarxos.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[freedomcry.livejournal.com]

Either he died, or his lifestyle changed from whatever "так" refers to, to something else.

[oryx_and_crake]

In general, yes. But in this context, if they tell me that "Так жил он еще семь лет", I tend to think that after these 7 years were over, something happened to him as well; otherwise why tell us about it at all? That's why I said that in this particular context there is probably not much difference. In another context, there might be.

[oryx_and_crake]

Yes, but the point is that in this context you can use both жил and прожил.

[bakabaka.livejournal.com]

> otherwise why tell us about it at all?
I think, when "Так жил он еще семь лет" is used, something happened to him, but it might have only a short-time effect, so he could still live the same way as before.

[jimmyhere.livejournal.com]

"прожил" more like "lived through"
and "жил" is just lived