VERBS OF MOTION

[al-r.livejournal.com]

идти-ходить-пойти
Yesterday I went to the theater. - Вчера я ходил в театр.
We are going to the theater today. - Сегодня мы идем в театр.
But:
First I went to the library then I went to a class then I went home. - Сначала я пошел в библиотеку, потом я пошел на урок, потом я пошел домой./ Вчера я ходил в театр, в магазин, к другу в гости. / Когда я сходил в библиотеку, я пошел на урок и потом - домой.
He will go to work today. - Он пойдет на работу сегодня.
How will you go to work tomorrow? Will you go by car? - Как ты поедешь...? Ты поедешь на машине?

Dear teachers, how would you explain when to use ПОЙТИ?
Dear students, how do you define it to yourself, what is the easiest and logic explanation?
Thank you!

Comments

[zveriozha.livejournal.com]

"Yesterday I went to the theater. - Вчера я ходил в театр."

Same way you can say - "Вчера я пошел в театр". Tho it doesn't mean you actually reached it.
It can be like - Вчера я пошел в театр, но по дороге передумал. Again - it can mean the same thing as ходил.

But!

You can't say - Вчера я ходил в театр, но по дороге передумал. This would be wrong.

So - Пошел куда-то means you left for that place OR you were there.
But - ходил куда-то usually means you left for that place AND were there.

Compare -

Вчера я пошел в магазин, но по дороге начался дождь, и мне пришлось вернуться за зонтиком.
Вчера я пошел в магазин и купил хлеба.
Вчера я ходил в магазин.

[badmadnad.livejournal.com]

в театр - is театр not declined? Sorry if it is a stupid question. My Russian is still super basic and we studied the prepositions "na" and "v" last time... I would have thought that a final "je" should be added in this case?

[zveriozha.livejournal.com]

Я был в театрЕ.
Я пошел в театр.
Я ходил в театр.

Sorry, I might not always tell you the exact rule. But I am sure to give correct Russian examples. Hope it'll help too, and some other guys can explain things better.

[badmadnad.livejournal.com]

Thanks a lot, guys! We did the accusative as well... but we didn't do examples with B - so that's why I wouldn't know that yet. I shall brag about it in my next class, haha.

[al-r.livejournal.com]

"в" and "на" can require 2 cased:
Prepositional (location-where, where are you situated)
Accusative (direction-where, where to are you going)

[al-r.livejournal.com]

Thank you!
So why it is usually preferred to use ПОЙТИ when enumerating? First I did this and then I did that...

[zveriozha.livejournal.com]

Prolly cause "ходил" implies accomplished action.

Я (с)ходил в кино. - I went to the movies (and came back).
Я пошел в кино, потом пошел в бар, потом пошел к знакомому.

Пошел doesn't necessarily mean you actually came to the cinema, watched the movie, went home. It's perfect/imperfect difference. So when we talk about several actions in a row, we use пошел.

But!

If you say - Я ходил в театр, я ходил на работу, я ходил к друзьям. (in one sentence) - it means, I used to go to the theater, I used to go to work, etc. The meaning here would be - some distant past, not what you did yesterday.

So don't mix them up.

[joliecanard.livejournal.com]

So there are two distinctions here. One is uni- vs. multidirectional and the other is imperfective vs perfective.
In the first example, the action was multidirectional - a round-trip. You went there then back, so you use ходить.

In the example "Сначала я пошел в библиотеку, потом я пошел на урок, потом я пошел домой", it is a completed action, so it's the perfective пойти, but not ходить because it wasn't a round-trip, it was a single direction of movement.
The пойти vs. идти distinction is perfective vs. imperfective.

Does that help?

[ru-entranslator.livejournal.com]

+1 :)

[superslayer18.livejournal.com]

This isn't helpful, but after several years of studying I still want to stand on my chair and scream out "I hate глаголы движения!"

[dekarmi.livejournal.com]

Poor, poor foreigners who have decided to study Russian!
(In turn, I often hate English articles and tenses :))

Вчера я снова пошел в театр. Потому что всегда ходил в театр. А вчера я шел в театр, но не дошел. Вернулся с полдороги домой. Вот так я вчера не сходил в театр. Больше я не хожу в театр. Надоело.

[superslayer18.livejournal.com]

Gaahhhh I hate that so much lol.

"Yesterday I went to the theater again. Because I also go to the theater. But yesterday I went to the theater but didn't get there. I went home (from the half-street??). So I didn't go to the theater yesterday. I won't go anymore. I'm fed up with it!"

In English that's basically just 1 verb in whatever forms you put it in, in Russian, you used 5 (i'm not counting ходил and хожу separately)

[dekarmi.livejournal.com]

In the second sentence I wrote always ("всегда"), not also. The third sentence's meaning requires rather "and" than "but" in the first place. The fourth one would rather be translated as "turned back half-way".

/In English that's basically just 1 verb in whatever forms you put it in, in Russian, you used 5 (i'm not counting ходил and хожу separately)/

Yeah.. Besides, English words are not actually connected to each other with changeable endings. Maybe that's why my first thought, when we just started studying English in our 10 years old, was "what a primitive language!" Later I revealed that its dictionery contains much more various words than Russian does. Simultaneously lacking some basic ones (like "sutki" (day+night, 24 hours), for example).

[zveriozha.livejournal.com]

The "feeling of the language" helps. To obtain it, you need to watch movies, talk to native speakers, read, listen to some songs etc.