GrammatikVerben Aspekte

Verben Aspekte

In Russian, verbs come in two aspects: imperfective and perfective.

Imperfective (несоверше́нный вид) focuses on the process, repetition, or duration of an action.

• чита́ть (to read, be reading)
• писа́ть (to write, be writing)
• де́лать (to do, be doing)

Perfective (соверше́нный вид) focuses on the result, completion, or one-time action.

• прочита́ть (to read completely)
• написа́ть (to write (and finish))
• сде́лать (to do (and finish))

Verb pairs

Most Russian verbs exist in pairs: one imperfective and one perfective.

• чита́ть (to read) ↔ прочита́ть (to read completely)
• писа́ть (to write) ↔ написа́ть (to write and finish it)
• говори́ть (to speak) ↔ сказа́ть (to say)
• рабо́тать (to work, generally) ↔ порабо́тать (to work for a while)

How to learn the aspects

The verb aspects are one of the more difficult things in Russian because for every sentence you need to select the correct aspect. To practice, you can think during your day about which aspect (ongoing/habitual versus one-time/completed) would fit best for which situation.

For example, after eating breakfast, you could say either

• "I was eating breakfast" / я за́втракала (imperfective, ongoing) if you focus on the process or
• "I ate breakfast" / я поза́втракала (perfective, one-time/completed) if you want to tell that you finished eating.

Below we also have exercises to practice when to choose which aspect.

It takes a while to get used to the aspects, so try to practice them continuously and don't worry if you get it wrong sometimes, people will still understand you.

Main idea

• Imperfective → focus on the process ("what was or is happening")
• Perfective → focus on the result ("what was or will be completed")

The difference is often small. For example there are two ways to say the sentence "Did you do your homework?":

• Ты де́лал дома́шнее зада́ние? (де́лать is imperfective)
  "Did you work on your homework?"
  → with the focus on the process or experience.
• Ты сде́лал дома́шнее зада́ние? (сде́лать is perfective)
  "Did you finish your homework?"
  → with the focus on the result.

Just by choosing the verb aspect (де́лал vs сде́лал) you change the meaning of the sentence.

Another example

Consider the verb pair чита́ть / прочита́ть.

• Я чита́л кни́гу → I was reading a book (process)
• Я прочита́л кни́гу → I read the book and finished it (completed)

The difference is again the process vs completion.

When to use imperfective

• Process / ongoing action
  Я чита́ю кни́гу. (I am reading a book.)
• Repeated or habitual actions
  Я ча́сто чита́ю. (I often read.)
• General facts
  Я говорю́ по-ру́сски. (I speak Russian.)
• Background actions
  Я чита́л, когда́ он пришёл. (I was reading when he arrived.)

When to use perfective

• Completed action / result
  Я прочита́л кни́гу. (I finished reading the book.)
• Single, one-time action
  Он сказа́л э́то. (He said it.)
• Sequence of events
  Он пришёл, сел и на́чал есть. (He came, sat down, and started eating.)

To each their own

The general pattern of imperfective = process and perfective = completion is very useful, but each verb pair can develop its own nuance or specialized meaning. Some examples:

Some perfective partners simply mean "do it once" or "complete it", while others can add meanings like "for a while", "begin", "achieve", or "reach a result". That's why aspect is important, but vocabulary-specific meaning matters too.

Which aspect is more common?

In everyday language, do imperfective or perfective verbs get used more often? We couldn't find any study, but we checked the 360,000 sentences in our database and usage was almost equal with 55% imperfective and 45% perfective verbs.

Questions

Aspect often answers different questions:

• Imperfective → What were you doing?
  Что ты де́лал?
• Perfective → What did you achieve / finish?
  Что ты сде́лал?

Present, past, future

Imperfective verbs have all three tenses:

• Я чита́ю (I am reading)
• Я чита́л (I was reading)
• Я бу́ду чита́ть (I will be reading)

Perfective verbs have only past and future (no present):

• Я прочита́ю (I will read and finish)
• Я прочита́л (I finished reading)

The “present” form of a perfective verb actually expresses the future.

See also the grammar about the past or the future.

Negation

With negation, imperfective is sometimes used to emphasize that something did not happen in general:

• Вчера́ я не рабо́тал. (I didn’t work yesterday.)

Perfective negation can imply failure:

• Вчера́ я так и не порабо́тал. (I didn’t manage to work yesterday (I wanted to work but I couldn't).)

Summary

• Russian verbs have two aspects: imperfective (process) and perfective (result).
• Imperfective: ongoing, repeated, general actions.
• Perfective: completed, one-time, result-focused actions.
• Perfective verbs do not have a true present tense.
• Most verbs exist in aspect pairs like говори́ть/сказа́ть.