..но скорее грустная.. Помню, я плакала.. long form adjective and imperfecive past?

The full sentence is :-

'Я читала книгу. Она хорошая, но скорее грустная..
Помню, я плакала, когда Татьяна грустная Онегина'

I am guessing that the long form adjectives 'хорошая' and 'грустная' are here instead of 'хороша' and 'грустна' because the latter would sound a bit bookish in conversation?

Also, 'плакала' (imperfective) is used to explain that 'I was crying when...' rather than just 'I cried when...', to emphasise the crying and make it a bit more possible to empathise with?

Am I looking at it right??

> I am guessing that the long form adjectives 'хорошая' and 'грустная' are here instead of 'хороша' and 'грустна' because the latter would sound a bit bookish in conversation?
In this case "хороша" is nothing unusual. "хорошая" is more universal word. For example, you cannot say "я купил хорошую книгу" using short form. So, "хороша" is naturally more rare.

> Also, 'плакала' (imperfective) is used to explain that 'I was crying when...' rather than just 'I cried when...', to emphasise the crying and make it a bit more possible to empathise with?
Em... "я заплакала" = "I had started to cry when...". What russian word do you mean behind 'I cried when'?

My point about "хорошая" was that, from what I know so far, I would expect "хороша" to be used when it is the last word in the clause, rather than "хорошая":-

"Она хороша" not "Она хорошая".

I read somewhere that, although the 'correct' way in this case is the first one (хороша,) it is normal to use the long version (хорошая) instead in speech.

I may be wrong; I was hoping to find out if the above statement is true or not.


I wasn't really trying to say one word for 'I cried when'. I think this is me not explaining it very well again.

What I meant was that I thought imperfective 'плакала' (meaning 'I was crying') was chosen rather than the perfective form, in order to bring attention to the crying itself, rather than just the fact that she had cried. I thought that maybe that would make a listener/reader imagine her crying, rather than just registering the fact that she had cried.

Maybe this isn't the reason, it was just something that I thought might be true.

> I read somewhere that, although the 'correct' way in this case is the first one (хороша,) it is normal to use the long version (хорошая) instead in speech.

"Хорошая" is equal in rights with "хороша" here. Yes, it is absolutely normal, and moreover, because "хорошая" is more universal it tends to be used more.
However there are differences at some cases. (Not in this case.)
For example, if you meet lost child and want to seek for his parents with him, you can say "я - хороший" ("I am good (man)") to calm him down. On the other hand, if you make good move in the game with friends you can exclaim "я - хорош!" "(Damn,) I'm good!". It will be mistake to misuse these forms in these cases.
For beginning you may think that short forms "хорош/хороша" are more rare and because of it - are more valuable". Some sort of little bravado or excitement. "Девушка хороша" = "Girl is good/beautiful". "хорошо" is another case ("мне хорошо" = "I feel good").
"Книга хороша" is very ok and have a little bit of excitement.

> What I meant was that I thought imperfective 'плакала' (meaning 'I was crying') was chosen rather than the perfective form, in order to bring attention to the crying itself, rather than just the fact that she had cried.

In russian "я плакала" is equal to "I cried" too. There is no special form for "I cried" in russian.
To say the truth "rules of present/past/future" is most difficult part in learning english for me. Because we have another ones.
As far as I know:
"Я плакала каждый день" = "I cried every day"
"Я плакала два часа" = "I was crying for two hours".

хорошо! There's a lot of uses for that then.

I think that for Russian speakers, learning English tenses must be like me trying to learn how to apply Russian aspect; hard work, baffling sometimes.

I can only say that I think what you have written

"Я плакала каждый день" = "I cried every day"
"Я плакала два часа" = "I was crying for two hours"

is how I would write it too. Not that this means it's right! Without equal knowledge of each other's languages, it's hard to say what is right really...