Thread: Present Verbs: Part Deux

OK, I took all of your wonderful advice about present tense verbs before, but I still am confused. Not about which conjugation to use or which infinitive to use, but with the conjugation of present/future tense verbs. EVERY WEBSITE I GO TO says that along with learning the two infinitives (imperfective and perfective) that:
"When you learn a new verb, learn the infinitive and also the я and ты forms. These three forms reveal all you need to know about the verb."
-(quote from www.auburn.edu/~mitrege/RWT/tutorials/0002verbs.html)

That' s what this website said:

http://www.auburn.edu/~mitrege/RWT/tuto ... verbs.html

And this one (it doesn't say it flat out but it gives uses the words "present/future stem" and explains how to chnage an infinitive from this in some section or another)

http://www.auburn.edu/~mitrege/RWT/tuto ... verbs.html

OH! and even this one...

http://masterrussian.com/aa021100a.shtml

What is this about? At first, I thought that all you needed to know were the two infinitives. But I found this and asked you guys if there were irregualr verbs like in French. Someone said that no, none were as irregualr as the next but some rare examples must be totally memorized.

EVERYWHERE also says that the only forms of a verb listed in a dictionary are its infinitives. I DON'T GET IT WHY ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH WOULDN'T YOU PUT IN ALL FORMS NEEDED TO FULLY CONJUGATE A VERB IN THE DICTIONARY

Maybe I just worded myself wrong the first time and didn't make sense , but with these examples I'm sure I'll get what I mean across this time.

PLEASE someone tell me that I CAN use my pocket dictionary to look up verbs and use them asI need them in the day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Calm down there.

When you learn a new verb, learn the infinitive and also the я and ты forms.

It's because the verb can change a bit between these forms:

Я могу
Ты можешь
Он может
Вы можете
Мы можем
Они могут

The change is fairly predictable, though.

As you can see, you only needed the I and the You forms.

yes, but how do I get these to forms from the dictionary when all it lists is the infinitives. Do I have to get a new dictionary that lists these forms. To my knowledge (all of the websites mentioned earlier also say this) dictionaries generally only list infinitives.

My dictionary lists those forms. Get a better dictionary. For verbs like the one I mentioned above it should show you, or put a little number next to it that you can use to look up the forms in the back.

So are there only a few of these verbs that change for these tow forms? I know exactly what you mean, they do the exact same thing in French (and every other language I have) dictionary, but these only happen rarely. Are there only a few irregular Russian verbs? I think I read somewhere a number, but I'm not sure.

From what i have seen, at least 40 percent of verbs are irregular. My dictionary gives я ты они conjugations..the rest are implied. But there are alot of irregular things in russian. Verb conjugations, noun declensions, stuff of that nature. It gets easy with time though. I recommend harper collins dictionary, or lingvo.

Harper Collins. I was going to buy one of those, but I was short of money and the next time I looked it was gone. Does it have Irregular stuff like you were talking about. They do make wonderful dictionaries.

well they usually give the conjugation of the verb...so you know how its conjugated. its got like appendixes in the back and stuff..its really good

The "Romanov's English-Russian-English" dictionary is not bad and I've seen it at a lot of bookstores. But definitely get Lingvo, at least if you're on the computer a lot like me.

Lingvo is online too...its probably not as good as the program, but it does the job. Pravit...perhaps you could spread the wealth?

lingvo.yandex.ru

Sorry, the program is several hundred megabytes and I have nowhere to host it anyway. I would recommend you buy it from ABBYY. It's only like $40.00 and a quality product at that. Costs about the same as Battlefield 2 or another computer game. Do your brain a favor and buy Lingvo instead!

I guess it wouldnt hurt to buy....ill get it off ebay

Come on. Support ABBYY. Or you could get Multitran, I've heard it's pretty good too.

In the back of an old textbook I have I found a list of these stems. EUREKA, rihgt? Well, I'm going to memorize these with their infinitives and I think I'll be on my way. Thanks guys, I still have to get a better dictionary, but until then I can keep myself busy with these. Thanks again, I knew i'd get an answer this time.

Concerning dictionaries, Multilex is good as well - http://www.multilex.ru/dictionaries.shtml

You need only two nonpast forms to know the stress pattern, the Я and ТЫ forms, not all three. The ОНИ form follows from the ТЫ form for any consonant alternations as well as for stress.

For example, say you have two verbs гнусить 'sing nasally', or maybe 'hum' I'm not sure, and носить 'carry'.

So you learn that in 1p.sg. you have certain consonant alternations; for С you have С/Ш.
гнушу ношу
where stress is on underlined vowel.

and then the rest of the conjugation goes back to C:
гнусишь, носишь
...
гнусят, носят.

But many verbs ending in -ить have an accent shift back off the ending onto the stem in all forms except for the 1.pers.sg. So the 1.pers.sg. gives you any consonant alternation, but you have to look elsewhere for stress patterns, hence the 2.pers.sg.

Once you have the infinitive and these two forms, and you know the consonant alternations, you can generate all other forms (some exceptions) and their correct stress placement.

So, now for the checks.

Does your dictionary show where the stress falls in the nonpast tense of носить and гнусить, on the ending or on the stem?

Second, which stress pattern is correct for the verb звонить 'to phone'?
звоню, звонишь, ... звонят
звоню, звонишь, звонят

=;^)

Originally Posted by chaika

...
Second, which stress pattern is correct for the verb звонить 'to phone'?
звоню, звонишь, ... звонят
звоню, звонишь, звонят

=;^)

звоню, звонишь, ... звонят

is the correct one.