Thread: Which command

"приводи ко мне" would be "bring [somebody] to me".
"приезжай ко мне" is the right expression.

Originally Posted by dtrq

"приводи ко мне" would be "bring [somebody] to me".
"приезжай ко мне" is the right expression.

Great, thanks!

Can you explain why you can express driving in "Я вожу машину", but when using the verb "водить" in command form, the fact that you're driving changes?

I'm aware that водить has a double meaning, in that it could refer to driving a car, or leading something also on foot, like walking a dog for example.
So why does it mean "driving a car" in the present tense, but not imperative?

Also, how would you say "I drove a car" or "I will drive to your house"

And how would you command someone to drive, say if you are giving them driving lessons or something?

спасибо!

Originally Posted by kburr

Can you explain why you can express driving in "Я вожу машину", but when using the verb "водить" in command form, the fact that you're driving changes?

It is not true. Command forms may be:
"Води (машину) аккуратно" (Drive carefully).
"Ты поведешь" (You will drive).
But "водить машину" is like "to rule car", "to control car" (derived from "to lead [walking procession]" as "to control movement of someone/something"). You cannot say "Control car to my house". That's it. You must say "приезжай (на машине) к моему дому".

Originally Posted by kburr

Also, how would you say "I drove a car"

Drove a car WHERE? Remember that with unprefixed verbs of motion, there's a distinction between round trips and one-way travel, and you have to keep that in mind when translating from English. For example:

Last year, I drove a car to Moscow (but I live in St. Petersburg).
Here, there's an implied round trip, so you'd use the unprefixed "indeterminate/multidirectional" verb, ездить:
В прошлом году, я ездил в Москву на машине.

Yesterday, I drove a car here to Moscow.
Here, it's a one-way trip that's been completed (i.e. it's perfective), since the conversation is taking place in Moscow. Use a prefixed form of the unidirectional ехать:
Вчера я приехал сюда в Москву на машине.

When I was driving a car here, I nearly got into an accident.
And here, something happens DURING the (one-way) trip -- use an unprefixed (and thus imperfective) form of unidirectional ехать:
Кодга я ехал сюда на машине, я чуть не попал в аварию.

Summary:

progressive-past "was driving" = ехать without a prefix
simple past "drove", when a round-trip is implied = ездить without a prefix
simple past "drove", when a one-way trip is implied = ехать WITH some sort of prefix (по-, подъ-, при-) depending on context.

This is generalizable for other past-tense Verbs of Motion (ходить/идти, носить/нести). Things work slightly differently in the present tense, but you can deal with that later!

P.S. In all the above sentences, you could use the instrumental машиной ("by car") instead of the prepositional на машине ("in a car"). Or you could leave out the word "car"/машина, and just use the appropriate form of the "vehicular" pair ездить/ехать, without needing to specify the vehicle (just as in English, "I drove" or "I was driving" is sufficient, without saying whether it was a car or a truck or a motorcycle or whatever).