VERBAL ASPECT IN RUSSIAN: “READ” 📖🇷🇺#learnrussian #russiangrammar #easyrussian #russianlanguage

Today we'll compare the imperfective читт with the perfective про читт. They both mean to read, but let's use them across different tenses to see how they're different. Present tense. Present is super easy because perfective cannot be used in the present. So you can technically only use читт in the present. For example, я читаю сейчас. I am reading now. Or я много читаю. I read a lot. Past tense. Imperfective past is я читал. Я читал вчера. I read yesterday or I was reading yesterday. It doesn't matter how much I read or whether I finished what I was reading. Or раньше я много читал. I used to read a lot before. So something I did multiple times in the past. Now, perfective past is я про читал. And perfective means that the action is finished only happened once and usually there is some result. For example, ты про читал мой email. Have you read my email or did you read my email? So here I am interested in the result and it is implied that if the person did read my email they would only do it once. Or я про читал эту книгу, но она мне не понравилась. I read this book, but I didn't like it. So again, it means that I read the entire book, so I finished it and I only did it once. Because why would I read it twice if I didn't like it? And now let's look at the future. So future imperfective is буду читать. For example, завтра я буду читать. Tomorrow, I'm going to be reading or I'll be reading. So again, we don't care about the result. We don't care about how much I'll read or whether I'll finish what I'll be reading. Or в этом году я буду больше читать. This year, I'm going to read more. Again, there is no focus on result or completion. And it is implied that I'll be doing it on multiple occasions. The perfective future is я про читаю. So to form the perfective future, you just conjugate the perfective form as if it was present. So we just conjugate the perfective про читать. Я про читаю, ты про читаешь, and so on. And of course, you already know that it will not actually be present because perfective does not exist in the present. Instead, it will be the perfective future. And just like with the past, perfective future implies completion, one time only, and some kind of result. For example, я про читаю твой email сегодня. I'll read your email today or I'm going to read your email today. So that implies that I will read the entire email completely and I will only do it once. Or imagine someone recommended a good book and you say, я обязательно про читаю эту книгу. I will definitely read this book. So that implies that you will read the entire book and, again, most likely, you will only do it once. Would you like some practice? Then check out the exercise in the pinned comment.