Thread: Verb of motion

Hello, everyone!
I´ve been coming across some doubts about russian verbs of motion. The verb go (on foot), for example, Imperfective (Indefinite) - Ходить, Imperfective (Definite) - Идти and Perfective Aspect - Пойти. I know the difference between Indefinite and Definite, but I don´t know the difference between them and Perfective Aspect - Пойти. I have the present, past and future of Ходить and Идти, so how I use the verb Пойти? This is breaking my brain.

Thanks for helping.

It seems to me that Идти is also Indefinite ("что делать?"), so the difference between идти and пойти is in aspect - the former is imperfective, the latter is perfective. Пойти means a one time action in the past, in this case it is similar to verb "сходить", and means a finished action in the past ("Пойти (сходить) в магазин за хлебом" - "To go to the shop for bread"). It can also be used to form future tense of the verb "to go" - "я пойду" or "я собираюсь пойти" or "я хочу пойти".

I have the present, past and future of Ходить and Идти, so how I use the verb Пойти? This is breaking my brain.

If you used present/past/future for the verbs ходить and идти (я хожу / я ходил / я буду ходить or я иду / я шёл / я буду идти) this will mean only the process, like the continuous tense in English (I am walking / I was (have been) walking / I will be walking or I am going / I was (have been) going / I will be going), so you need to use the verb "пойти" for finished action.

When i study russian at scool my teacher every time asking:"What question according to the verb?" You shojd choose apropriate question to the verb.
Ходить и идти - question is - что делать? (usually) - Imperfective time
Пойти- что сделать? (ones) - Perfective time

For exsemple: Мы хотели ходить в школу (every time, usually). Мы хотели пойти (сходить) в магазин (ones)

It means either 'went' or 'set off'.

поезд пошел - the train (has) set off. (The train has changed from a stationary state to one of motion)

Сегодня утром пошел с Борькой на корт. Там я играл с ним- This morning Borka and I went to the tennis court. There I played with him
(I think here пошел moves the action on to the tennis court. You are more interested in your having gone to the tennis court and what happened once you got there than what might have happened on the way. And сегодня утром means we're talking about a one-time action.)

First, I'm a learner of Russian myself, so the following might not be completely correct.

You should not mistake the difference between ходить and идти for a matter of perfective versus imperfective. This is a different matter. A small number of verbs of motion (see below) have the additional complication of having a form for directional motion towards a place and a different form or even a different verb for the movement as such, frequent movement or movement to and fro.

You use the directional form (here идти) when you mention the place where the movement is intended to finish, so you say "я иду в магазин". This is a single, one-directional movement, you go to the shop, and the process of walking ends there.

If you use the non-directional form (here ходить), then you imply movement as such, several instances of movement (e.g. I go to the shop every day) or a roundtrip (there and back again). Therefore if you say "я хожу в магазин" it implies, according to context, that you usually or frequently go there, that you intend to go there and return, but it does not refer to a single walk to the shop.

This distinction is only made for a small set of verbs of motion, according to my grammar there are 14 such pairs, and not all are terribly important to know:

directional - non-directional - translation
бежать бегать run
брести бродить walk leisurely
везти возить transport (driving)
вести водить drive (car as a driver), guide
гнать гонять drive (cattle), speed
ехать ездить drive (by car, not just driver)
идти ходить walk
катить катать roll
лезть лазить climb
лететь летать fly
нести носить carry
плыть плавать swim
ползти ползать crawl
тащить таскать carry, drag (sth. heavy)

The bold letter is where the emphasis goes.

As an aside, public transport according to timetables generally uses идти - ходить and vessels on water use плыть - плавать.

Now all these verbs are imperfective. Both forms may be combined with prefixes as you usually find with perfective verbs, and in that case the directional distinction is dropped, and the formerly directional verb is used for the perfective aspect, while the formerly non-directional verb is used for the imperfective aspect. So you get уйти (perfective) and уходить (imperfective) for "to walk away".

The prefix по- is special in that it makes both imperfective forms of these verbs, the directional as well as the non-directional, perfective. A directional verb with по- implies the beginning of the movement: я побежал = I began to run. A non-directional verb with по- implies short duration: я побегал = I ran a little.

thank you guys so much

Thank you guys so much , but I still have a doubt.

Originally Posted by bitpicker

The prefix по- is special in that it makes both imperfective forms of these verbs, the directional as well as the non-directional, perfective. A directional verb with по- implies the beginning of the movement: я побежал = I began to run. A non-directional verb with по- implies short duration: я побегал = I ran a little.
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Ok, a directional verb with по- implies the beginning of the movement: я побежал = I began to run. A non-directional verb with по- implies short duration: я побегал = I ran a little. But, how will I conjugated these verbs? I mean, the conjugation of Побежать (perfective aspect) is different in future tense than the conjugation of Бежать and Бегать in future tense.

As with all perfective verbs, the future conjugation is identical to the present tense conjugation of the imperfective verb. So while "бегаю" means "I am running (around)", "побегаю" means "I will run a little". Likewise, убегаю = "I will run away". The future tense with буду plus infinitive and so on only applies to imperfective verbs.

Originally Posted by bitpicker

As with all perfective verbs, the future conjugation is identical to the present tense conjugation of the imperfective verb. So while "бегаю" means "I am running (around)", "побегаю" means "I will run a little". Likewise, убегаю = "I will run away". The future tense with буду plus infinitive and so on only applies to imperfective verbs.

"убегаю" means "I'm running away" (and "running" here implies the action going on at the moment of saying), "I'll run away" would be "убегу". "убегать/убежать" is the respective Imperfective/Perfective pair.

A slight correction: "убегаю" can also mean "I run away" in the sense of something like "I run away from there every morning".

Correct me, please. When I have one prefix, for example, убегать and убежать the perfective verb will be убежать and the imperfective verb, убегать?
It´s always like this?

убегать - to be in a process of running away - imperfective
убежать - to complete running away - perfective
убегаться - perfective - to exhaust oneself with running

In the same way:

уплывать, уплыть, уплаваться
уезжать, уехать, уездиться
увозить, увезти, увозиться
etc...


compare to
бегать - iterative (indefinite) imperfective
бежать - progressive (definite) imperfective

There is complicated and flexible pattern including stress. There IS a system, even if it is difficult to formulate explicitly.

BTW here is nice picture about verb aspect.