Russian/Grammar/Verbs

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In English we say, "I study," "you study," "he studies," "she studies," "we study," "they study." Note that some pronouns use "study," while other pronouns use "studies." (Strangely, what looks like a plural verb is not used with the only two plural pronoun—"they" and "we"!) "Verb conjugation" is how verbs change with pronouns. English has simple two-form verb conjugation ("conjugate" comes from the Latin term for "yoked together" because English verbs come in pairs; "conjugal," meaning yoked together in marriage, comes from the same root).

Russian verbs conjugate in seven forms, for the infinitive or dictionary form, and for the six pronouns "I," "you (informal)," "he" and "she," "we," "you (formal)," and "they."

Russian verbs conjugate in two regular patterns. In other words, some verbs are first conjugation, when others are second conjugation.

All verbs have an infinitive form, which is listed in dictionaries. Typically this form ends in ть.

Every russian verb has two indicative forms: past form and present-future form. If you want to know the right way to conjugate a verb in indicative, you must know it's three basic forms: muscle formof past tens, prent form to pronoun "I" and to pronoun "HE/SHE/IT".

For example:

знать: pt знал, pr знаю, знает; to know, some man knew, I know, he/she/it knows.

[edit] First Conjugation

First-conjugation verbs that aren't in the second. They usually end in ать. These verbs conjugate by dropping the ть and replacing it with the following endings. Читать means "to read". Жить means "to live" (usually in a place).

To construct the form for pronoun "I", we takes first person form of pr from a dictionary, to construct other personal forms, we take the same first letter of ending, as for third person of pr in a dictionary.

English		ending
infinitive		ть	читать ("cheetat")	жить ("zheet")
I	я	ю or у	читаю ("cheet-a-you")	живу ("zheevoo")
you (informal)	ты	ешь or ёшь	читаешь ("cheet-a-yesh")	живёшь ("zheevyosh")
he, she	он/она	ет or ёт	читает ("cheet-a-yet")	живёт ("zheevyot")
we	мы	ем or ём	читаем ("cheet-a-yem")	живём ("zheevyom")
you (formal or plural)	вы	ете or ёте	читаете ("cheet-a-yeht-ye")	живёте ( "zheevyotye")
they	они	ют or ут	читают ("cheet-a-yout")	живут ("zheevoot")

[edit] Second Conjugation

Second-conjugation verbs end in -ить. These verbs conjugate by dropping the ть and replacing it with the following endings. Говорить means "to talk".

Exceptions:

- 7 verbs with infinitive with ending –еть have second conjuration: видеть, вертеть, обидеть, зависеть, ненавидеть, терпеть, смотреть.

- 3 verbs with infinitive with ending –ать have second conjuration: слышать, дышать, держать

- verb гнать (It has -ать too, but here's it's a part of the root)

- 2 verbs with infinitive with ending –еть have first conjuration: брить, стелить

English		ending
infinitive		ть	говорить ("govoreet")
I	я	ю	говорю ("govor-you")
you (informal)	ты	ишь	говоришь ("govor-eesh")
he, she	он/она	ит	говорит ("govor-eet")
we	мы	им	говорим ("govor-eem")
you (formal or plural)	вы	ите	говорите ("govor-eetyeh")
they	они	ят	говорят ("govor-yat")

Note that verbs with они conjugate with ят, not ит!

Rule of thumb: In the present and futures tenses (which will be looked at later on), you can omit the pronoun as the stem ending indicates who performs the action. i.e, you can just say "чита́ю " (I read/ I am reading) or "говори́шь" (You speak/ you are speaking) and people will still understand you. This is not the case when talking about the past or conditional tenses of imperfective and perfective verbs (the reasons will be explained later). The same rules also apply in Ukrainian and Belorussian.