Russian Verbs
Jun. 11th, 2003 06:59 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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learn_russianПривет! My friend "Марисса" recently found 501 Russian Verbs in a free book bin and snagged it for me. As I flip through, I notice that it is structured differently from my 501 Verb books for French and Spanish. For starters, the verbs themselves seem to be different. Every verb has two forms like — *flips to random page* — курить / покурить [kurit' / pokurit'] (which means "to smoke, burn"). What are the different forms? Also, some say ся [sja] after the verb in parenthesis, for instance купать (ся) / выкупать (ся) [kupat' (sja) / vykupat' (sja)] which means "to bathe, give a bath (bath, go swimming). Any information would be greatly appreciated!
Also — can anyone recommend a good book that teaches basic vocab and grammar? Right now all I can do is read Cyrillic and say a *few* words.
Also — can anyone recommend a good book that teaches basic vocab and grammar? Right now all I can do is read Cyrillic and say a *few* words.
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no subject
Date: 2003-06-11 08:02 pm (UTC)The -ся ending on the verbs can have different uses. Sometimes, it forms the reflexive, like in Spanish. Often, it marks the passive voice. In some cases, it changes the meaning of the verb. Because if its multiple uses, my Russian professor doesn't call it a "reflexive marker" but instead the "ся" ending.
The textbook I used for class was Cioran's RussianAlive! and it worked okay for me. It wasn't spectacular, but I don't have any other textbooks to compare it to, so it might be very good.
no subject
Date: 2003-06-11 08:06 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2003-06-12 04:18 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2003-06-12 04:18 pm (UTC)So it sounds like 'ся' is almost exactly like se in Spanish. Very helpful, thank you.
no subject
Date: 2003-06-11 10:31 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2003-06-12 04:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-06-12 09:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-06-13 06:00 am (UTC)Well, as others have said, "ся" is a sort of reflexive ending. Applied to certain verbs, it makes the object of the verb "myself/yourself/himself" etc. An example: одевать to dress (someone); одеваться to dress oneself.
Sometimes the usage of this is a bit different than in English: Иван начинает концерт "Ivan begins the concert", but Концерт начинается "The concert begins" ("itself").
Taking this a bit further, we get verbs like смеяться means "to laugh", which are used reflexively to mean something which (in English) isn't reflexive. (It reminds me of Ancient Greek's middle voice - not that I really know anything about Ancient Greek... Or of French (and probably Spanish too) phrases like Il se brosse les dents, literally "he brushes himself the teeth", meaning "he brushes his teeth")
BTW, ся is short for себя, meaning "self". The reflexive verb is formed simply by adding "ся" to every form of the nonreflexive verb. Very easy. There's one little thing to remember: never add "ся" to a verb form ending in a vowel; use "сь" instead. So одеватся "to dress oneself", but я одеваюсь "I dress myself".
no subject
Date: 2003-06-13 06:05 am (UTC)Now, here's where the fun starts: the two verb forms. Most verbs come in "aspectual pairs", one of which (usually listed first, at least in texts I've used) is the "imperfective", and the other being the "perfective". As you probably know from other langs, the imperfective refers to incomplete actions, as well as habitual actions; while the perfective refers to completed actions (think of the Mandarin "le"... but it's easier ;). There are some peculiarities; an "undone" action is considered imperfective. So if you say "who opened (perf) the window?", using the perfective verb as indicated, it means "the window is open: who opened it?". OTOH, "who opened (impf) the window" is a lot like "who was opening the window?", which in my local variety of English (Ireland) anyway means "who opened and the closed the window?". This also covers going and returning, etc. Actually I won't get into verbs of motion, since they're considerably more complex aspectually, and I don't know it very well yet.
So, in Russian, you distinguish between aspects not by different inflections, but by using different verb stems. Also, the pairs are (mostly) created by a number of methods; the most common goes like this: Suppose you have a stem which has no "prefixes", like по-, при-, от-, etc (there's load of them; how Indo-European). This will usually be imperfective. Adding any prefix will make it perfective. Of course, most of these will be different verbs too; say from писать "to write" we might get подписать (под- = under) and написать ( = on), as well as lots of others. Now the first of these actually means "to sign", (to write a signature) as as you might predict from what I said earlier (that a prefix-less stem is imperfective), it's actually perfective. The second one, нанисать is the perfective of писать. Note, there's no sure way of telling which prefix is going to form the perfective and which is going to create the perfective of a separate verb. But as you might expect "under + write" isn't going to be the perfective of "write", because it suggests something quite different.
Again, I stress that you can't tell which prefix gives the perfective without knowing it, but as a rule of thumb, the one that changes the meaning the least is likely to be it. For this reason по-, a rather vague prefix, is probably the most commonly used.
no subject
Date: 2003-06-13 06:07 am (UTC)As I mentioned earlier, подписать is the perfective of a distinct verb, "to sign". What's the imperfective of it? And the imperfective of similarly formed verbs. Indeed, for prefixed verbs like these which don't have the unprefixed form (писать) for their imperfective, you often make the imperfective by inserting "ыв" just before the infinitve form. So the imperfective form of "подписать" is "подписывать". It's not alway so simple: sometimes instead of ыв you use ив, preceded by a mutation on the preceding consonant (I think the mutations are usually just like the 'palatalization' that occurs in certain verb forms). Sometimes the stress changes. Sometimes the conjugation of the verb changes. Sometimes only the stress or conjugation changes. Sometimes the perfective and imperfective stems are unrelated (impf. гоборить, pf. сказать "to say/speak", though sometimes there are accounted separate verbs). You never really know, but you can often make a guess about a form you don't know, and more usefully, you can often recognise a form as being the perf. (or imperf.) of a verb you already know.
One final thing about the interplay between tense and aspect. In the past tense (formed by adding -л [masc], -ла [fem], -ло [neut], -ли [plural] to the infinitive after removing the -ть) it works just as you'd expect it: (assuming a masc. speaker) я писал "I was writing" (impf), vs. я написал "I wrote" (perf).
But when you add the so-called present tense endings to the stems, the imperfective forms the present tense (он писает "he writes"), but the perfective gives the future tense: So, он написает "he will write". Now this really means the future perfective "he will have written". How do you say "he will be writing" (the imperfective future)? You use an analytic construction plus the imperfective infinitive: он будет писать, "he will be writing". What's this будет thing? Well, it's said that Russian has no verb 'to be' in the present tense, which naturally means that it has no imperfective stem that you can form a present tense from. But it does have a perfective form, which serves as a future tense "я буду, ты будешь, он будет...". So it means "he will".
Oh, Ugly_boy, if this is of any value, it might perhaps be used a a tutorial in learn_languages. If so it might be good to wait a while until at least basic verbal conjugation is done there.
no subject
Date: 2003-06-13 06:38 am (UTC)a small note: он напишет, not написает
Re:
Date: 2003-06-13 12:27 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2003-06-13 12:24 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2003-06-13 12:20 pm (UTC)Thank you! This sounds very much like Spanish, where you use "se" to say that something has happened, or that something does happen. For instance Se compra los biletos acá — Tickets are purchased here, which in English would be You buy the tickets here. The comarisons with French made this easier to understand, so thank you!
ja rule
Date: 2003-06-13 06:33 am (UTC)Re: ja rule
Date: 2003-06-13 12:32 pm (UTC)Re: ja rule
Date: 2003-06-13 01:05 pm (UTC)Re: ja rule
Date: 2003-06-13 02:36 pm (UTC)Re: ja rule
Date: 2003-06-13 02:51 pm (UTC)Re: ja rule
Date: 2003-06-13 04:38 pm (UTC)Privet
Date: 2003-06-17 04:46 am (UTC)K
Re: Privet
Date: 2003-06-17 01:06 pm (UTC)