Thread: купить

покупить-купить
whats the difference of these words?
I've seen things like..
Я купила.. ты покупила..

Я не понимаю

покупать is the imperfective form of 'to buy'.
купить is the perfective.

You could say 'Я часто покупаю продукты' - 'I often buy groceries'. Meaning that it is a habitual action.
While, Я куплю продукты means 'I will buy groceries'.
When you use the perfective купить in the past tense it means that it was a singular, completed action, e.g. Сегодня днём, я пошёл в магазин и купил продукты - This afternoon I went to the store and bought groceries. That sentence indicates that the action was done once and is now completed . Make sense ?

I get it! , but what if you say я покупила... ? Your explanation was very easy to understand, thank you.

Originally Posted by Евгения Белякова

I get it! , but what if you say я покупила... ? Your explanation was very easy to understand, thank you.

Женя, нет слова "покупила". Есть "покупала". Это глагол прошедшего времени женского рода несовершенной формы.

Я покупала also means 'I bought' but has a little more meaning. It's more like 'I was buying' e.g. Я покупала сыр, когда я его увидела - I was buying cheese when I saw him.

Thank you for your helps Nick, and JJ. And what about послушать и слушать? And other verbs such as these forms, can you explain to me better? I am sorry to bother you. Thanks

The same things. IMHO the diffrence is something like послушать - to have listened to smth, слушать - to be listening to smth.

No bother at all! I am grateful to pass on any knowledge.

Here's a little rundown on imperfective/perfective verbs (which I couldn't understand at all until I got to it in the Penguin course, from which most of these examples come):
Imperfective past-tense:
Habitual actions, actions with no specific duration, when the meaning is 'all day' 'a long time' 'for four hours' etc., when denoting states such as 'to live' rather than an action, actions attempted but w/o result, or when the duration isn't important.
For example:
Она слушала радио весь день - She listened to the radio all day. (time duration)
Он часто забывал - He often forgot (habitual)
Я жил там - I lived there. (denotes a state of being not an action)

Perfective past-tense*:
Used for completed single events, sequences of actions (unless they are habitual, since one must be completed before the other one can happen), and with 'не' indicating that the action was tried but failed (i.e has had a result).
For example:
Мы пошли домой - We went home. (completed, singular event)
Я позвонила и сказала, что приду - I phoned and said I'd come. (sequence of events having been completed)
Вы мне не позвонили - You failed to call me. (Although you were expected to)

*The future-tense is 90% of the time formed by perfective verbs. To do this, all you have to do is put the present-tense endings on them!
Я куплю молоко - I'll buy milk
Она скажет 'простите' - She'll say 'sorry'
The other 10% is using the future-tense of быть followed by the imperfective infinitive:
Когда я выучу русский язык, я буду жить в России - When I master Russian, I will live in Russia.

Originally Posted by Ник

Он часто забыл - He often forgot (habitual)

It's not right. You can say "Он забыл" but only "Он часто забывал" is right.

Oops! Забывал, you're right! I have changed it now to eliminate confusion.

My Russian teacher (of two years ago) once said something about saying "Он купился" meaning something like "he played into it" about a joke or a trick or something. Anyone ever heard this, and exactly what does it mean?

Он купился на это - he fell for it
Довольно-таки распространенная фраза

We have something rather similar in English. American English, I think:

He bought it.

It's not usually used for a person who falls for a joke (although it could be). The most common meaning would be: he agreed to something (for example, a business decision). Or: he believed something which wasn't true.
e.g.:
I told my teacher that the dog ate my homework - and he bought it!

Thank you so much for your help! I have a better understanding now. I have a quick question for anyone, I would feel bad sort of starting a new post so I guess I'll just ask in this one because its little. How would you say..
in script(like cursive lettering all connected)-
in pring(like not connected letters)-

sorry, thanks!

Does anybody know how to say those phrases above?