Thread: Help with translation

Originally Posted by justinwyllie

Thanks Soft sign

The only thing that confuses me is that свозил is the imperfective. Since this is a completed action - I took the cat to the vet, it got treated and now I've taken it home (sorry - that was my sense which I didn't make clear) - should this not be perfective? Я свёз кошку к ветерена́ру? Why imperfective?

спасибо

Свозил is perfective.
Отвёз also is perfective.

"I took the cat" - it's is imperfective in english and in russian.
I took the cat to the vet - я возил (вчера, год назад) кошку к ветеринару.
If i'm not doing mistake, "i took" in English = imperfective (= I took yesterday, a year ago...) and also in Russian "возил/водил кошку" is imperfective but can sounds as perfective if it's a difficult sentence like:
"I took the cat to the vet, it got treated and now I've taken it home" - "я возил кошку к ветеринару, её вылечили и сейчас я привёз её обратно домой". Depending on the context, this sentence in russian can be both in "present pefect" and "past simple" meanings.
Ты свозил кошку к ветеринару? - Да, я возил кошку к ветеринару, её вылечили и сейчас она уже дома.
In this sentence you can use both возил and отвёз, and even отвозил - it will be synonyms. Отвёз is perfective, возил and отвозил is imperfective, just use отвёз for do not to confuse yourself if action is completed recently and отвозил/возил if this action was long ago (yesterday, a year ago..). Just sometimes russians can use imperfective verbs in perfective sentences))