Tenses

In this lesson we’ll talk about Russian tenses and about major differences between English and Russian tenses. 

The Russian for tenses are времена, which are literally translated as times. 

The tense both in English and Russian means the same: it's a form of a verb used for describing action, state, or occurrence in relation to a particular moment, for example I am learning means that you learn something at the moment while I learnt indicates that you learnt something in the past. 

The major difference between English and Russian tenses is that English has 12 basic tenses.

Russian has only 3 tenses: present, future and past and almost every verb has two perfect forms one for the future and the other for the past. That means if you are a native speaker of English you will always have to compress the 12 tenses into 3 tenses and 2 forms when building Russian sentences. 

English tenses are built by using auxiliary verbs like to be, have etc, for example: I have been learning, or by adding endings, for example I studied or I was studying. Due to the fact that Russian doesn't use any auxiliary verbs like be, have etc Russian tenses are built mainly by modifying endings, for example я читаю, она читала, by adding prefixes, for example: я прочитаю and using such words as уже (already), сейчас (now) and ещё (yet), for example: я читаю (I read) but я читаю сейчас (I am reading). 

There is a tight connection between English tenses, which is called the sequence of tenses, for example in the sentence: he said he wanted to drink the first sentence is simple past; so the second one will be changed to simple past as well although it means the present tense and it would be grammatically inaccurate to say: he said he wants to drink. Russian tenses are not connected at all, and you can combine tenses in any way as long as it makes sense, for example the sentence: он сказал, что он хочет пить (he said he wants to drink) is grammatically accurate in Russian whether he wanted to drink a minute ago or a long time ago.  

English verbs agree with he, she and it by adding endings–s and –es, for example it makes or she does, Russian verbs agree with all nouns and pronouns in the present and future tenses, for example: он читает, мы читаем, они читают, вы читаете etc.

The Russian future tense is very simple and is built by using the verb быть (to be) + the infinitive form of a verb, for example я буду работать (I will work). The future form of the verb быть is also conjugated while the verb itself goes unchanged, for example я буду работать, ты будешь работать, он будет работать etc.  

The English simple past is built by adding the ending -ed or -d to the verbs, for example: I talked. The Russian past tense is built by adding the ending -л; the verbs in the past tense agree in person and gender with nouns, for example: я/ты/он сказал, она сказала, оно сказало, мы/вы/они, сказали. So the ending not only indicate things that happened in the past but also gender of a subject.   

Despite the fact that English perfect tenses are similar to the Russian ones there are some differences between them. English perfect tenses are built by using the verb have or had and simple past forms, for example I have finished or I had cleaned. Russian perfect forms rather exist as separate words. So almost every Russian verb has a perfect form, for example: думать - подумать, делать - сделать, решать - решить, продавать - продать etc.

This is LearnRealRussian.com. The lesson is over. Thanks for listening!