Russian Verb Lessons
Please, select a lesson of interest from the list below:
The tenses of the Russian verbs
Russian verbs are words that usually denote an action (read, walk), an occurrence (melt, glitter), or a state of being (exist, stand). In Russian, a verb changes in form according to many factors, including its tense, aspect, mood and voice. It also agrees with the person, gender, and number of some of its arguments.
Being a part of the Indo-European family, the Russian language has complex rules describing changes in verb endings--this process is know as conjugation. The lessons in this section will teach you how to conjugate verbs by picking proper verb endings depending on the subject person, gender and number. When in doubt, you can always refer to our conjugation tables that provide complete conjugation charts of common Russian verbs.
Similar to the English language, the verbs in Russian have grammatical tense that expresses the time at, during, or over which a state or action denoted by a verb occurs. There are three tenses in Russian: the past, the present and the future. In addition to this, Russian verbs have a second property called aspect. Our grammar lessons explain everything you need to know about verb tense formation, including the initial form of the verb (called the infinitive), the perfective and imperfective aspects of the verb, conjugation endings, verb stems, and other pertinent rules.
Verbs of motion deserve special attention when learning Russian. This group of verbs is used to talk about various types of movement such as walking, running, swimming or flying. Some of the grammar points explained in our verb lessons include unidirectional and multidirectional verbs of motion, prefixed and unprefixed motion verbs, and usage of motion verbs in idiomatic expressions.
Verb mood is another grammatical concept that is similar in both Russian and English. Moods are used to state facts, give commands, make requests, or talk about possibility and impossibility of an action. For example, the sentence "Открой дверь" (Open the door) uses the word "открывать" (to open) in the imperative mood to indicate a command. There are four moods in Russian: the conditional, the imperative, the indicative, and the subjunctive.