PERFECTIVE VS. IMPERFECTIVE: “BUY” 🇷🇺 #learnrussian #russiangrammar #easyrussian #russianlanguage

Let's compare pokupats and kupits in Russian. Both mean to buy and cause some confusion for the students. Pokupats is imperfective. So it's more about the process or regular occurrences. No emphasis on completion or result. Kupits is perfective. So kupits is more about completion and result. And kupits cannot be used with regular or repeated occurrences because kupits can only mean to buy something once. Also be careful with this particular verb because its imperfective and perfective forms are kind of reversed. Because usually the perfective form is the one with the prefix. But for this verb, pokupats is imperfective even though it has a prefix. Whereas kupits without the prefix is perfective. Okay, let's go. Let's start with the infinitive. Imperfective. I want to buy more vegetables. So this implies that you want to do it on a regular basis. Perfective. I want to buy more vegetables today. So this only refers to one time. So maybe in general you buy fewer vegetables but today you decided to buy more. Past tense. I used to buy a lot of vegetables before. And this again implies that you did it on a regular basis in the past. Not just once. Perfective. I bought a lot of vegetables today or I have bought a lot of vegetables today. So again, you're only referring to one time and there is a clear result. Future. I'll be buying more vegetables this year. Again, that implies doing it on a regular basis. Maybe you decided to eat more healthy. Perfective. I'll buy vegetables tomorrow or I'm going to buy vegetables tomorrow. So this again only refers to one trip to the store, maybe because you're out of veggies. And yes, to form the perfective future, you simply conjugate the perfective cupit as if it was present. And by the way, you can never say budu cupit. That's never correct. Budu can only be used with the imperfective. Pocupat. Commands. Pocupai bolshe avashe. Buy more vegetables. So this is just general advice. And whoever gives it to you, for example, your doctor wants you to do it on a regular basis. Perfective. Buy more vegetables today. And this request only refers to one time. Wait, what about the present? You can actually only use imperfective in the present. For example, yapa kupai. Overshi kashde din. I buy vegetables every day. Perfective cupit can never be used in the present. If you try using it in the present, you'll actually end up with perfective future. Which again, is yakuplu. I'll buy. And guys, please don't say yakupai. Because that means I bathe, unless you bathe your vegetables.