The Verb Engine: Three Tenses at Once

Eight pronouns, six forms — and the verb does the work

Russian has eight subject pronouns: я, ты, он, она, оно, мы, вы, они. They collapse into six grammatical persons, because он, она and оно all take the same verb ending. That is the whole pronoun system, and you already met four of these words in Lesson 1.

Unlike Italian or Spanish, Russian does not usually drop the pronoun, and unlike English it does not need an auxiliary to make a question or a negative. The verb ending carries the person, the question is carried by intonation, and the negative is one particle. Three simple rules and the engine runs.

One habit to build now: say the pronoun out loud with every verb form while you are learning the table, then start leaving it out once the ending is automatic. Both are correct Russian.

• Я чита́ю. I read. / I am reading. Listen in Russian: Slow in Russian: Я чита́ю. Listen in Russian: Slow in Russian:
• Она́ чита́ет. She reads. / She is reading. Listen in Russian: Slow in Russian: Она́ чита́ет. Listen in Russian: Slow in Russian:
• Мы чита́ем. We read. / We are reading. Listen in Russian: Slow in Russian: Мы чита́ем. Listen in Russian: Slow in Russian:
• Они́ чита́ют. They read. / They are reading. Listen in Russian: Slow in Russian: Они́ чита́ют. Listen in Russian: Slow in Russian:

Conjugation I: one ending set covers most Russian verbs

Take the infinitive, drop the final -ть, and add six endings: -ю, -ешь, -ет, -ем, -ете, -ют. That single rule conjugates читать, знать, думать, работать, понимать, слушать, играть, гулять and отдыхать — nine of the ten verbs in this lesson.

This is why Russian verb conjugation is a better deal than it looks. There are two conjugations and a handful of genuinely irregular verbs, not five classes of irregularity as in Italian. Once this ending set is automatic you can produce the present tense of a verb you have never seen before, as long as you know which conjugation it belongs to.

The stress of these verbs does not move: where the infinitive is stressed, every conjugated form is stressed too. рабо́тать → рабо́таю, рабо́таешь, рабо́тал. That makes the whole paradigm predictable, which is a real gift for a beginner.

• чита́ть → чита́ю, чита́ешь, чита́ет to read → I read, you read, he/she reads Listen in Russian: Slow in Russian: чита́ть → чита́ю, чита́ешь, чита́ет Listen in Russian: Slow in Russian:
• зна́ть → зна́ю, зна́ешь, зна́ет to know → I know, you know, he/she knows Listen in Russian: Slow in Russian: зна́ть → зна́ю, зна́ешь, зна́ет Listen in Russian: Slow in Russian:
• рабо́тать → рабо́таю, рабо́таешь, рабо́тает to work → I work, you work, he/she works Listen in Russian: Slow in Russian: рабо́тать → рабо́таю, рабо́таешь, рабо́тает Listen in Russian: Slow in Russian:

The time machine: the past has no person

Here is the fact that makes Russian tenses cheap. The past tense does not conjugate for person at all — it conjugates for the gender and number of the subject. Add -л to the infinitive stem and you have four forms: -л (masculine), -ла (feminine), -ло (neuter), -ли (plural).

So я читал, ты читал, он читал are all the same word, and the pronoun is what tells you who is meant. A woman says я читала. A group says мы читали. There is no auxiliary verb, no participle, no agreement chain — four forms in total, against the six of the present.

There is no present-tense form of "to have" involved either. Russian does not build its past the way English or Italian does. One suffix does the whole job.

• Я чита́л. I read / I was reading. (male speaker) Listen in Russian: Slow in Russian: Я чита́л. Listen in Russian: Slow in Russian:
• Я чита́ла. I read / I was reading. (female speaker) Listen in Russian: Slow in Russian: Я чита́ла. Listen in Russian: Slow in Russian:
• Оно́ рабо́тало. It worked. Listen in Russian: Slow in Russian: Оно́ рабо́тало. Listen in Russian: Slow in Russian:
• Они́ чита́ли. They read / They were reading. Listen in Russian: Slow in Russian: Они́ чита́ли. Listen in Russian: Slow in Russian:

The future: быть plus an infinitive that never moves

The third tense costs you six forms of быть and nothing else. Conjugate быть — буду, будешь, будет, будем, будете, будут — and put the infinitive after it, unchanged. Я буду читать. Ты будешь читать. Мы будем читать.

This is the imperfective future, and it is the one you will use most often at this level, because it is the future of every verb you have met so far. The main verb carries no information at all; быть does everything.

There is a second future in Russian, formed without any auxiliary — simply by conjugating a perfective verb, as in я прочитаю "I will have read it". Structurally that form looks exactly like the present tense, which is why the two are best learnt side by side. That is Lesson 14; today one future is enough.

One more thing to notice, because it will surprise you: быть itself has no present-tense form in ordinary use. Я студент, not Я есть студент. The verb "to be" exists in the past (был) and in the future (буду), and simply vanishes in between.

• Я бу́ду чита́ть. I will read. / I will be reading. Listen in Russian: Slow in Russian: Я бу́ду чита́ть. Listen in Russian: Slow in Russian:
• Ты бу́дешь рабо́тать? Will you work? Listen in Russian: Slow in Russian: Ты бу́дешь рабо́тать? Listen in Russian: Slow in Russian:
• Мы бу́дем отдыха́ть. We will rest. Listen in Russian: Slow in Russian: Мы бу́дем отдыха́ть. Listen in Russian: Slow in Russian:
• Он был до́ма. He was at home. Listen in Russian: Slow in Russian: Он был до́ма. Listen in Russian: Slow in Russian: