Thread: Perfective and imperfective verbs

Hello everyone!

I'm desperately trying to understand the difference between some perfective and imperfective verbs. Below are some verbs, which I can't attach to a certain meaning! Could anybody help me, pleeease!

отдавать and сдавать

заплатить and расплатить

подумать and обдумать

бросить and бросать

порадоваться ??

испугаться and пугаться

обежать and собежать and отбежать and убежать

упрятать ??


Thank you!!

Nothing that a dictionary can't solve. Do you have one? If not, use Multitran:

http://www.multitran.ru/c/m.exe?HL=2...E0%E2%E0%F2%FC

http://www.multitran.ru/c/m.exe?HL=2...E0%E2%E0%F2%FC

Hey, you just mixed all them up to the devil.
отдавать and сдавать are different.
Отдавать is like give away - I had to give my dog away cause it had bitten my girlfriend.... Why have I not just kill it I wonder...
Сдавать is like "hand in" (among a bunch of other meanings): she handed in her paper after the deadline..

And the others are mixed up in exactly the same way...
So ur problem here is not in the perfective/imperfective thing, but is of to get the right meaning of the word. They can be really different even though are looking almost the same.

The perfective/imperfective true example:
сдать / сдавать
дать / давать
лечь / ложиться
встать / вставать
....

If it still confuses you, tell us...

Can I sneak in a few question?

What's the difference between брать/взять and принимать/принять? I believe брать means to take, and принимать is more like to receive, but I'm not sure.

Is it true that there are two different uses of говорить, each with a different perfective verb? говирить/сказать (to say) and говорить/поговирить (to speak)?

If so, are such overlaps common?

TheBB
Sure!
In the брать vs взять the difference is truly about perfective/imperfective - thing.
But if you mean the difference between "брать/принимать", then yes again, they mean exactly what you mentioned (take/receive).
There should be something on the forum about it, even I posted something earlier (just too lazy now to look for it myself, but if you can't find anything or still not sure - just post right here again).
And yes, there are 2 different uses of speak/say/talk - говорить/сказать ; говорить/поговорить
And yeah, such overlaps are quite common in Russian, and this is one of the things that confuses non-native Russians most.

Thanks. Yes, I'm asking about the difference between two pairs of imperfective/perfective verbs, not about the difference between the aspects. I believe I have those down. Most dictionaries seem to pay little attention to the aspect pairs, and just list translations instead. I would like to learn the pairs together, but it gets hard without a definitive source. Maybe I should get a verb table or something.

Well, think of it this way:
Sometimes they have a pair and sometimes they don't. Like the verbs you mentioned: говорить/сказать are supposed to be a pair.
But! there is a bunch of words made from the same stem like
поговорить, проговорить, заговорить, разговорить, подговорить, отговорить, переговорить, недоговорить, приговорить...
(Enough for the 1st time I guess).
And each one of them has its own slightly different meaning than just "говорить" and its own pair:
поговаривать, проговаривать, заговаривать .... sure you get the construction.
And the same with сказать: рассказать, подсказать, пересказать ...... and the same about pairs:
рассказывать, подсказывать, пересказывать...
So technically, говорить is a root of the tree of the говорить-like words and сказать is like a root of the neighbour tree.

And I don't know why they (говорить + сказать = ) are referred as a pair. Maybe because they don't have their own true pair, like говорить doesn't have a perfective partner while сказать - is without "his" imperfective one, because the "сказывать" word is obsolete and is used veeeeeeeery rarely and by very old people only. So maybe people decided to get them married each other

So the thing to remember is that every word has its own meaning, its own history and its own usage and it can whether have an aspect pair, or not have one. And I don't know any reliable resourse to be able to make it clear. Except myself, maybe.
So, don't shy to ask and pick up words' usages -- that's what I have to say.


P.S.
Oh, yeah, говаривать WAS a word about 100 years ago:
"Говаривали в старину бывалышну о семи добрых молодцах ... "

Just decided to add something:

As to брать/взять, they are a fake pair as well. There WAS a word "взимать" which means to "take away" like take away duties / taxes etc. And this word is a true aspect partner for взять. But now брать/взять are referred as a pair for some reason. Maybe because of their close meaning. Maybe because брать doesn't have a partner, maybe because all of it together.

So the meaning of the принимать/принять word is more like you don't make any physical efforts to take something. Like if someone's giving something to you. Or when you do not make physical actions to make something given your own. Like a king doesn't make any physical action to "receive" tributes.
And брать/взять are supposed to mean that you do something mechanically to actually "take" something. Like taking a book from the table or something.

Crystal clear, captain.

Originally Posted by TheBB

Can I sneak in a few question?

What's the difference between брать/взять and принимать/принять? I believe брать means to take, and принимать is more like to receive, but I'm not sure.

Is it true that there are two different uses of говорить, each with a different perfective verb? говирить/сказать (to say) and говорить/поговирить (to speak)?

If so, are such overlaps common?

брать - нейтральное значение
принять - взять, но непременно то что тебе давали