Learn how to form the past, present, and future tense of Russian verbs
| A: | Здравствуйте, Ваш паспорт, пожалуйста. | ||
| B: | Вот, пожалуйста. | ||
| A: | Сколько Вы пробудете в России? | ||
| B: | 12 дней. | ||
| A: | Где Вы будете жить? | ||
| B: | в отеле Голден Эпл. | ||
| A: | Какая цель Вашего приезда в Москву? | ||
| B: | B основном бизнес, но хочу и немного попутешествовать. | ||
| A: | Хорошо, спасибо. |
в основном mainly, mostly / путешествовать to travel / приезд arrival, visit / цель purpose, goal /
Note: When you are unsure of which aspect to use, it’s better to use the imperfective: it will provide your friend with a better understanding than when you mistakenly use the perfective form.
Imperfective (incomplete, ongoing, interrupted, or repeated actions)
The word путешествовать itself means “to travel.” Adding the prefix по- makes this word sound softer and makes you sound more modest and a little coy. It diminishes the importance of the act. It makes it sound shorter, smaller, and less significant, and it makes you seem even less of a show-off. It can also indicate that the act is temporary and is over soon. All in all, let’s translate it as “a little.” So, in the case of “travel,” we’ll get something like “to travel around a bit.”
For Example:
| Verbs (dict. form) | Romanization | “English” | Plus по- | Romanization | “English” |
| есть | iest’ | “to eat” | поесть | poiest’ | “to have (something) to eat” |
| спать | spat’ | “to sleep” | поспать | pospat’ | “to take a nap” |
| гулять | gulyat’ | “to walk” | погулять | pogulyat’ | “to take a walk” |
| смотреть | smotret’ | “to watch” | посмотреть | posmotret’ | “to have a look” |
| говорить | govorit’ | “to speak” | Поговорить | pogovorit’ | “to have a chat” |