Thread: Preterite and present perfect

Is this difference marked in Russian verbs?

e.g.

-In english the Preterite (Simple Past): I ate
-In english the Present perfect: I have eaten

So as both are Perfective in nature I would assume съел or поел in Russian (not sure which one) but alone is it correct to say that in russian the perfective can denote either of these two english "tenses" before being more strictly assigned to one with the use of additional adverbs?

Ontop of that, how would one tie the meaning to these two using adverbs? Essentially by adding уже for example?

Just making sure I have understood correctly that much like ел could represent either a habitatual action (used to eat when i was 5) or a continuous action (I was eating when the phone rang) I was wondering if this was similar in its variation before adding other words to the sentence to solidify its meaning.

SIDENOTE: I have eaten could denote both, having just eaten so being full (not hungry) but it could also be used in another way, for example:

"You are suppose to chew when you eat"
"I HAVE eaten before, you know!?"

This doesn't denote that you have eaten and are therefore full in the present, but explains that you have eaten in the past and it is now part of your experience, In icelandic for example these differences are marked with two different auxilaries "hef" (have done it before) "er búin að" (I have finished doing, i.e. recently). Is there a way to denote this in Russian?

Thankyou for you help.

(EDIT: Final note, if anyone could tell me how to distinguish between present perfect and past perfect "I have eaten (now), "I had eaten (when he arrived)". I noticed I am asking about making the PRESENT perfect using the past in Russian, but that seems to be the only avaliable option at there is no "present" form of the perfective.)

Originally Posted by ShakeyX

So as both are Perfective in nature I would assume съел or поел in Russian

Я съел... = "I ate something (so it does not exist any more)" (An object is obligatory)
Я поел... = "I ate a serving/a portion of some meal" (An object is optional. When used without object, it often has the meaning "I have (just) eaten")

Russian Perfective expresses the idea "an action reached its logical end point at some time in the past" (even if "the past" is just one second ago). ( On Aspect of Russian Verbs )
There is no grammatical way to distinguish cases "an action was in the past" and "an action has completed and it has some actual results right now". You should use lexical means to do that.
Some adverbs to express "present perfect":
уже — already, yet, just
только — just
как раз, только что — just now, right now, or "right at that moment" ("past perfect")

Originally Posted by ShakeyX

EDIT: Final note, if anyone could tell me how to distinguish between present perfect and past perfect "I have eaten (now), "I had eaten (when he arrived)"

"I have eaten (now)." — "Я поел", "Я как раз поел", "Я только что поел".
"I was eating, when he arrived" — "Я ел, когда он пришел".
"I had eaten, when he arrived" — "Я как раз поел, когда он пришел", "Я уже поел, когда он пришел".
"I had been eating for 5 minutes, when he arrived" — "Я ел уже 5 минут, когда он пришел".

Thankyou for that answer

Just to confirm, are you stating here that the perfective can be used to correspond to the english...

"Present perfect" - "I have eaten (now)." — "Я поел", "Я как раз поел", "Я только что поел".
"Past perfect" - "I had eaten, when he arrived" — "Я как раз поел, когда он пришел", "Я уже поел, когда он пришел".

AND also the "Simple Past" - for example in a story "The man ate his dinner and then went to sleep"??

Just want to make sure that's correct.

Note: just noticed it's funny (not funny) how your example "I had been eating for 5 minutes" has "HAD" in it and yet is imperfective, as you can tell by the fact the sentence doesn't show the action was completed and merely time was spent doing it, right (I had been eating for 5 minutes but didn't finish)? It seems you just need to learn to see things in binary imperfective/perfective rather than what the english grammar would lead you to believe. Are all sentences which include an element of time (spent) normally imperfective then?

Again, about the "I HAVE eaten before thing" I assume that is just also perfective with the added adverb for "before" stuck in their, to make it historical?

EDIT: I just read the proper terms are "resultative perfect" I have already eaten and "experiential perfect" I have been to america (sometime before). Any difference in Russian as in Icelandic or not?

Originally Posted by ShakeyX

Just to confirm, are you stating here that the perfective can be used to correspond to the english...

"Present perfect" - "I have eaten (now)." — "Я поел", "Я как раз поел", "Я только что поел".
"Past perfect" - "I had eaten, when he arrived" — "Я как раз поел, когда он пришел", "Я уже поел, когда он пришел".

Yes.

Originally Posted by ShakeyX

Note: just noticed it's funny (not funny) how your example "I had been eating for 5 minutes" has "HAD" in it and yet is imperfective, as you can tell by the fact the sentence doesn't show the action was completed and merely time was spent doing it, right (I had been eating for 5 minutes but didn't finish)?

Yes, you are right.

Originally Posted by ShakeyX

AND also the "Simple Past" - for example in a story "The man ate his dinner and then went to sleep"??

Literally: "Он съел ужин и пошел спать". (In fact, the verb "поужинать" is preferable in this situation. "Он поужинал и пошел спать".)

But there is no direct mapping between English and Russian Aspects. You should analyze every single situation to choose the correct Aspect:

"Dr Nixon taught at the Oxford University last year." - "Доктор Никсон преподавал в Оксфордском университете в прошлом году." (an iterative/habitual action -> imperfective)

"I met your brother the other day." - "На днях я встретил твоего брата." (a single completed action -> perfective)

"He left 10 minutes ago." - "Он ушел 10 минут назад." (a single completed action -> perfective)

"I read "David Copperfield" yesterday." - Can be either "Вчера я читал "Дэвида Копперфильда"" (i.e. "I spent some time reading "David Copperfield" yesterday") or "Вчера я прочитал "Дэвида Копперфильда"" (i.e. "read completely").

"I didn't use to eat icecream when I was a child." - "Я (обычно) не ел мороженного в детстве." (iterative -> imperfective)

Originally Posted by ShakeyX

Are all sentences which include an element of time (spent) normally imperfective then?

Well, it's a bit confusing subject. I'll try to explain how it works:

Grammaticaly, perfective verbs express instant actions, which have no significant duration. But logically they still can have it.
"Я написал письмо за два часа". - The action "написал" has the duration "два часа". The preposition "за" means "in exchange for" here, so literally, it is "I wrote the letter in exchange for 2 hours spent."

At the other hand, imperfective verbs mean processes, that have some duration and have no "end point". But logically we can guess that "end point".
"Я писал письмо два часа, когда он пришел". - Here, the process was/had been going for 2 hours and then the action "он пришел" happened.
But if we erase "когда он пришел", the meaning of the sentence changes significantly.
"Я писал письмо два часа." - The process was going for 2 hours and... since the time spent is mentioned, then something happened after "два часа"? We have no clue what happened, so we can logically guess that the process reached its end point.

Imperfective + time and perfective + за + time are used in different contexts:

"Что ты делал сейчас?"
"Я два часа писал письмо."

"За сколько ты написал это письмо?"
"Я написал его за два часа."

Originally Posted by ShakeyX

EDIT: I just read the proper terms are "resultative perfect" I have already eaten and "experiential perfect" I have been to america (sometime before). Any difference in Russian as in Icelandic or not?

"I have been to America" - "Я был в Америке"
"I have never seen this man" - "Я никогда не видела этого человека"
"The pupils have always enjoyed his classes" - "Ученикам всегда нравились его уроки (и сейчас нравятся)"
I think, in most cases "experiential perfect" should be translated with imperfective verbs, since no "instant action" happens here and no "end point" is reached.

All these explanations sit well in my mind (make sense to me) so I'm becomming happier :P This has been something that has fried my brains for years.

So in your example with "Я писал письмо два часа, когда он пришел" are we saying that with the added context it denotes "I had been writing when..." whereas if you remove that it would more accurately translate to "I have been writing..." and it is only context (and additional words) which distinguish between the english "present perfect" and "past perfect"?

(I guess the fact time is involved is why we use had/have been rather than just "was", to indicate the progressive nature [jesus christ i've began questioning how it is in english now])

Someone give me a tick on that and I can sleep well tonight.

What confuses the hell out of me is this example on russianforeveryone. Up until this point I genuinely understand everything you've been saying, I can often identify if something is imperfective/perfective in english regardless of the construction so I feel i'm getting the hang of it, however this example just seems odd to me:

- Алло!
- Привет, Таня! Это Сергей!
- Привет, Серёжа!
- Что ты сейчас делаешь?
- Читаю интересную немецкую статью по истории.
- А что ты будешь делать, когда прочитаешь эту статью?
- Когда я её прочитаю, буду писать письмо моей немецкой подруге.
- А что ты будешь делать, когда напишешь письмо?
- Когда напишу, буду смотреть телевизор. Сегодя вечером новый фильм Михалкова "Восток - Запад". А что ты делаешь?
- Сейчас я смотрю футбол, а вечером буду писать курсовую работу. Кстати, Восток - Запад я уже посмотрел.
- А когда ты его смотрел?
- Полгода назад в кинотеатре.

Is it just me or does it seem weird... What will you be doing when you've read the article? fine, but then "when i have read (will have read) I will be writing a letter... denoting a sort of strange sense that the person doesn't think they will complete it, or they do not have that intention? Then straight after they refer to writing in the perfect indicating it was an action to be completed and put out the way, like a list. I dont get this hoping between imperfective and perfective.

Last point:посмотрел, as stated just now, I would have 100% expected смотрел as I believe this is the "experiential perfect". He once watched it, it is part of his life, however it is not recent and having just happened.

Thanks, Jake

Originally Posted by ShakeyX

All these explanations sit well in my mind (make sense to me) so I'm becomming happier :P This has been something that has fried my brains for years.

So in your example with "Я писал письмо два часа, когда он пришел" are we saying that with the added context it denotes "I had been writing when..." whereas if you remove that it would more accurately translate to "I have been writing..." and it is only context (and additional words) which distinguish between the english "present perfect" and "past perfect"?

(I guess the fact time is involved is why we use had/have been rather than just "was", to indicate the progressive nature [jesus christ i've began questioning how it is in english now])

Someone give me a tick on that and I can sleep well tonight.

What confuses the hell out of me is this example on russianforeveryone. Up until this point I genuinely understand everything you've been saying, I can often identify if something is imperfective/perfective in english regardless of the construction so I feel i'm getting the hang of it, however this example just seems odd to me:

- Алло!
- Привет, Таня! Это Сергей!
- Привет, Серёжа!
- Что ты сейчас делаешь?
- Читаю интересную немецкую статью по истории.
- А что ты будешь делать, когда прочитаешь эту статью?
- Когда я её прочитаю, буду писать письмо моей немецкой подруге.
- А что ты будешь делать, когда напишешь письмо?
- Когда напишу, буду смотреть телевизор. Сегодя вечером новый фильм Михалкова "Восток - Запад". А что ты делаешь?
- Сейчас я смотрю футбол, а вечером буду писать курсовую работу. Кстати, Восток - Запад я уже посмотрел.
- А когда ты его смотрел?
- Полгода назад в кинотеатре.

Is it just me or does it seem weird... What will you be doing when you've read the article? fine, but then "when i have read (will have read) I will be writing a letter... denoting a sort of strange sense that the person doesn't think they will complete it, or they do not have that intention? Then straight after they refer to writing in the perfect indicating it was an action to be completed and put out the way, like a list. I dont get this hoping between imperfective and perfective.

Last point:посмотрел, as stated just now, I would have 100% expected смотрел as I believe this is the "experiential perfect". He once watched it, it is part of his life, however it is not recent and having just happened.

Thanks, Jake

Well, sometimes perfective/imperfective forms can be replaced with one another with absolutely no logic behind it. However, it gives the sentence a slightly different shade of meaning. While another time, it significantly changes the meaning. Bringing in your examples,

1. Когда я её прочитаю, "буду писать/напишу" письмо моей немецкой подруге. - I'll write my German friend a letter as I'm done with my reading. Here, any of the two options is valid, but they make a subtle difference in the meaning, which you can't really explain logically, but which you can feel once you have your language skills at a certain level.

2. А что ты будешь делать, когда напишешь письмо? - And what are you going to do as you're done with the letter?
Compare this one vs. "А что ты будешь делать, когда будешь писать письмо?" ~ What are you going to do while writing the letter?

So here, the difference is crucial, and you can apply logic that will help you pick the one you actually mean to say.

3. Сейчас я смотрю футбол, а вечером буду писать курсовую работу. Кстати, Восток - Запад я уже смотрел/посмотрел. - Now I'm watching a soccer game, and I'll do my term project in the evening. Btw, I've already seen the Восток - Запад movie.

Again, the two options are totally interchangeable, and the difference in the meaning is really minor.

The difficulty of learning a language is that you don't have logic or a pattern that will always work, and you end up having to just "feel" the language anyway. But the good news is, after some time of deep immersion, you usually begin to feel it. =))

Originally Posted by ShakeyX

- Сейчас я смотрю футбол, а вечером буду писать курсовую работу. Кстати, Восток - Запад я уже посмотрел.

Last point:посмотрел, as stated just now, I would have 100% expected смотрел as I believe this is the "experiential perfect". He once watched it, it is part of his life, however it is not recent and having just happened.

Both смотрел and посмотрел are OK in this sentence.
Not sure if it is "experiential perfect" or something else... Maybe in my previous message, I confused myself a bit.
So... We talk about some state that established in the past and continues to be actual up to the present (and possibly will be actual forever).
A state can be:

1. A result of a logically completed action, i.e. result of a perfective verb.
As in our example: the man "посмотрел" the movie, so the state "the movie is watched" is actual for him now and forever.

2. Just a fact that some process took place in the past.
"Я был в Америке." - the process "был в Америке" was in the past, but this sentence itself means not only "process was in the past", but also the fact that the state "был в Америке" is actual for "я".

Originally Posted by ShakeyX

- Что ты сейчас делаешь?
- Читаю интересную немецкую статью по истории.
- А что ты будешь делать, когда прочитаешь эту статью?
- Когда я её прочитаю, буду писать письмо моей немецкой подруге.
- А что ты будешь делать, когда напишешь письмо?
- Когда напишу, буду смотреть телевизор.

Is it just me or does it seem weird... What will you be doing when you've read the article? fine, but then "when i have read (will have read) I will be writing a letter... denoting a sort of strange sense that the person doesn't think they will complete it, or they do not have that intention? Then straight after they refer to writing in the perfect indicating it was an action to be completed and put out the way, like a list. I dont get this hoping between imperfective and perfective.

That is a usual way of talking about "a thing that is going at some time or after another thing". Compare:

Что ты будешь делать сегодня вечером? -> Сегодня вечером я буду писать письмо.
Что ты будешь делать после ужина? -> После ужина я буду писать письмо.
Что ты будешь делать, когда прочитаешь эту статью? -> Когда я прочитаю статью, я буду писать письмо.

"Сегодня вечером", "после ужина" and "когда я прочитаю статью" all are adverbial phrases denoting when the process is going.
The speaker just says what will be happening at the specified time, but she does not mean that the process will be leaved incompleted.

Originally Posted by ShakeyX

I dont get this hoping between imperfective and perfective.

Perhaps it will become clearer if we reword that dialog in pseudo-English:
- What will you be doing (process) when you will finish reading (instant action) the article?
- When I will finish reading (instant action) it, I will be writing (process) a letter.
- What will you be doing (process) when you will finish writing (instant action) the letter?
- When I will finish writing (instant action) it, I will be watching (process) TV.

(A side note: in fact, когда means "after" when used with a perfective clause.)

Ah okay this flicking between doesn't seem so odd now when you put it like that. The only place where it is still disturbing is here:

- Сейчас я смотрю футбол, а вечером буду писать курсовую работу. Кстати, Восток - Запад я уже посмотрел.
- А когда ты его смотрел?

Now I get that you have stated in this case for some reason the experiential perfect with this verb can be expressed by both (he has watched it, the experience lives with him, but he isn't denoting that he completed it recently... which would lead me to use the imperfective)

So what I know... In Wallace and Gromit when they are on the moon, and they taste some cheese he says "This isn't like any cheese i've ever tasted" and uses imperfective пробовал (then immediately after says perfective попробуем.. to mean let's go try some other cheeses)!
-Dave Chappelle in a sketch is being stopped by the police and asks if the police officer has his show using imperfective видел.
Many other examples have happened today while chatting on VK which make sense to me and correspond with this experiential perfect.

I get ALL of this, it makes sense, imperfective for experiential perfects (have you evers) and perfective for the standard completed action (simple past, resultative perfect etc...). The crossover doesn't bother me so much if you tell me this is just how смотреть is... what bothers me is that one person stated already я посмотрел (perfective) and then the other person replies... NOT using the perfective??? That seems just weird to me but if it's something I have to accept I guess I just have to accept it. Why would he not reply using the same verb form as the style and information the verb carries has aleady been dictated by the first speaker, I would have thought.

Would it be completely possible that both these sentences use the imperfective смотрел, as from what I understand so far that is what I would instinctively do.

Yes you can say "Кстати, Восток-Запад я уже смотрел...А когда ты его смотрел?"
This is a perfectly grammatical sentence, the choice between "смотрел" vs "посмотрел" here (in both cases) is just a matter of taste.

the experiential perfect with this verb can be expressed by both (he has watched it, the experience lives with him, but he isn't denoting that he completed it recently... which would lead me to use the imperfective)

Not sure this works.
I wouldn't like to rain on your parade but these two seem to be absolutely equal to each other by meaning and completely interchangeable:
Я только что посмотрел этот фильм.
Я только что смотрел этот фильм.
The only tiny nuance is that "смотрел" denotes slightly increased duration of the action (watching) than "посмотрел", which simply states it as a fact.
Another difference between them is that "смотрел" does not refer to whether the watching has been completed or interrupted (prolonged action) while посмотрел clearly states that you have been done with the film (momentary action).

Okay I gotcha but just because I thought I was onto something, disregard this particular verb, I will concede смотреть/посмотреть has the annoying power to be used for both situations :P

But as RedFox said: "I think, in most cases "experiential perfect" should be translated with imperfective verbs, since no "instant action" happens here and no "end point" is reached."

And as this paper seems to claim:

http://folk.uio.no/atleg/relativepast_gronn_fdsl.pdf

"Ja uže skosil_pf / kosil_ipf travu.
I already mowe-PAST-PF / mowe-PAST-IPF lawn
I have already mowed the lawn. (resultative perfect Pf; experiential perfect Ipf(Imperfective))"

"On closer inspection, the Russian constructions in (1) differ from their English translations
not only with respect to the morphological make up. The analogy between
resultative/experiential perfect and perfective/imperfective aspect soon breaks down. Consider
for instance the alleged “experiential perfect” reading of the factual Ipf in (1). If we extend the
range of data, several differences emerge. For instance, unlike the experiential perfect in
English, factual Ipf in Russian is perfectly fine with frame adverbials:
(3) Ja padal s dereva v detstve.
I fall-PAST-IPF from tree in childhood
I fell (# have fallen) from a tree in my childhood."

i.e. I have fallen from a tree before, not; I have fallen and therefore can't you understand why MY ARM IS BROKEN!!!

As we can see, "have fallen" is a reading which is okay with being imperfective "padal". As I said, not wanting to confuse, I am okay with смотреть for some reason having this ability I just wanted to make sure that the standard "rule" (however bent it might get) is that the experiential normally uses the imperfective while the same ENGLISH setence "I have done" could also be in the perfective to display it is resultative perfect.

(Obviously as I'm learning, more subtle nuances will come into play, I just need a small victory so I feel like I get this, in general. Let me know if this is categorically wrong).

I just need a small victory so I feel like I get this, in general.

Well, all things considered, you may consider yourself the winner ... for now

A side thought about mowing the lawn: if we replace "скосил" with "покосил" we'll get an absolutely identical situation as in "смотрел/посмотрел" (косил/покосил).

Скосил/Выкосил both have the result (no more grass on the lawn) hardwired into their meaning while покосил/косил don't.

what bothers me is that one person stated already я посмотрел (perfective) and then the other person replies... NOT using the perfective??? That seems just weird to me but if it's something I have to accept I guess I just have to accept it. Why would he not reply using the same verb form as the style and information the verb carries has aleady been dictated by the first speaker, I would have thought.

But when you translate it to English, you probably also use two different tenses:
- I have already watched this movie.
- When did you watch it?
Does it seem weird to you?

Yes we might have different tenses in English but the point was both those sentences in English could be analysed as being "Perfective": they both denote the action was completed. That is what strook me as weird but I guess other than the rigid rules I know about imperfective and perfective, I will just have to get a feel for individual nuances from verb to verb.

- Сейчас я смотрю футбол, а вечером буду писать курсовую работу. Кстати, Восток - Запад я уже посмотрел.
- А когда ты его смотрел?

For the person to state perfectively (I have watched) and the person to respond imperfectively (When were you watching?) just seems odd to me. Obviously the English sentence you actually use to translate each instance of perfective/imperfective is quite loose (due to us for example being able to show continuous aspect without using -ing: The river ran down the mountain).

Maybe it is something to do with the fact the verb "watch/look" in itself is a sort of continuous action, it is not something you can do in the snap of a millisecond, it is a prolonged action to watch any film. I am only speculating here, but I would assume in other circumstances the imperfective would seem silly in russian to try and say that you have completed an action (e.g. I opened (perfective) the door and let him in).

Surely the imperfective could only be used here in such sentences as (I was opening (imperfective) the door when I realised that I haven't even eaten today).

Sound logic or another bad day? :P

A difficult question...

I guess it is related to lexical meaning of a verb, so there is no general rule.

This sentences look very similar for me:
Когда ты фильм смотрел? Когда ты фильм посмотрел?
Когда ты книгу читал? Когда ты книгу прочитал?
Когда ты машину чинил? Когда ты машину починил?

Here perfective is preferable, but imperfective isn't ungrammatical too:
Когда ты яблоко ел? Когда ты яблоко съел?
Когда ты телефон покупал? Когда ты телефон купил?

And here imperfective sounds awful:
Когда ты машину разбивал? Когда ты машину разбил?

I feel, that all these "когда смотрел/посмотрел, читал/прочитал, чинил/починил, ел/съел, купил/покупал" questions DO HAVE subtle differences in meaning and should be used in different contexts, but I have no idea what the difference actually is.

they both denote the action was completed. That is what strook me as weird but I guess other than the rigid rules I know about imperfective and perfective.

Note that the Russian imperfective can denote multiple actions in the past, like:

As a child, I used to catch crayfish in the creeks.
В детстве, я ловил раков в ручьях. (not поймал)

The question "когда ты машину разбивал" sounds like he is supposed to crash the car many times. In certain contexts, this sentence would sound ok to me.
I guess it's all about the pure meaning of a phrase rather than about this or that verb used. Replace "Машину" with "Лагерь" (camp) or "Палатку" (tent) and the verb "Разбивал" gets another meaning "pitch" and now the sentence "А когда ты лагерь разбивал?" doesn't sound weird at all nonwithstanding the fact that the overall structure and the verb are the same.

Originally Posted by ShakeyX

Yes we might have different tenses in English but the point was both those sentences in English could be analysed as being "Perfective": they both denote the action was completed. That is what strook me as weird but I guess other than the rigid rules I know about imperfective and perfective, I will just have to get a feel for individual nuances from verb to verb.

- Сейчас я смотрю футбол, а вечером буду писать курсовую работу. Кстати, Восток - Запад я уже посмотрел.
- А когда ты его смотрел?

For the person to state perfectively (I have watched) and the person to respond imperfectively (When were you watching?) just seems odd to me. Obviously the English sentence you actually use to translate each instance of perfective/imperfective is quite loose (due to us for example being able to show continuous aspect without using -ing: The river ran down the mountain).

Maybe it is something to do with the fact the verb "watch/look" in itself is a sort of continuous action, it is not something you can do in the snap of a millisecond, it is a prolonged action to watch any film. I am only speculating here, but I would assume in other circumstances the imperfective would seem silly in russian to try and say that you have completed an action (e.g. I opened (perfective) the door and let him in).

Surely the imperfective could only be used here in such sentences as (I was opening (imperfective) the door when I realised that I haven't even eaten today).

Sound logic or another bad day? :P

Yes, it's logic, and it's the way to understanding the Russian verb tense/aspect system. The thing is there are more than just two verb aspects in Russian. There are aspects that denote instantaneous actions, repetitive or habitual actions, continuos actions, a beginning of a continuous action and so on. Different aspects are formed by the use of different prefixes and suffixes (and even root change) which impart a new lexical meaning to the verb. For example, one can say:
"Я был в Америке", "я бывал в Америке", "я побывал в Америке", "я побыл в Америке", "я пробыл в Америке несколько лет".
All these verbs not only have different aspects, they have slightly different lexical meaning, and as for me, I am not sure where the actual border between grammatical aspect and lexical meaning goes.
There is quite a big difference between the English and Russian verb tense/aspect system in that the English system is more analytical, it sets a bunch of grammatical patterns that you can use on almost every verb (except for the modal ones) while the Russian verbs are individualists who don't like to accept standardized rules. Of course there are groups of verbs which follow their common patterns, but those patterns are not so universal, as the patterns of the Ehglish tenses.
As for the above-mentioned conversation about the watching a film, there is also a lexical meaning hidden behind the aspect.
"Я уже посмотрел этот фильм" - means that I have a result of watching the film.
"Когда ты смотрел этот фильм?" - the question is not about the result of watching, but about the time of the process of watching.
If you use different aspects you'll get different meanings. For example:
"Я уже смотрел этот фильм". - there is a bit of uncertainty in this phrase. It may mean that I have seen this movie for several times before or it may mean that I watched it partly, not to the end, or not from the very beginning of it.
"И когда же ты успел посмотреть этот фильм?" - there is amazement in tis phrase because, for example the movie may be completely new and nobody has seen it before, but I say that I have already seen it, or may be I'm so busy that I'm not supposed to have time for watching movies, but I have and that causes the amazement.
Hope, this helps.