Thread: Разные вопросы по грамматике (by Antonio1986)

Originally Posted by Antonio1986

Привет.

What is the difference between "сказать" and "поговорить"? The only thing I understand is that they both indicate the future of "говорить".

спасибо!

1. Neither of them indicates future unless you put it into the future form.
The forms you have provided are the infinitive forms. The infinitive does not have any tense. But you can put it into the Past, the Future, or the Present. The Present is only available for the Imperfective verbs. The verbs you are asking about are Perfective, so they do not have Present, only Past and Future:

"Сказать"
Past:
Я сказал (I said, I told something).
Future:
Я скажу (I will say, I will tell something).

"Поговорить"
Past:
Я поговорил (I had a conversation with someone).
Future:
Я поговорю (I will have a converstation with someone).

2. What makes these verbs similar is that both of them are perfective (while "говорить" is imperfective).

If you are not familiar with the concept of the aspect (Perfective vs Imperfective), then you are going to listen to a long story about it, and there is a lot of things to understand (not possible to put it into a single post).

To make it simpler, first notice the fact the Imperfective verb can be used in any Tense:
Present: Я говорю. (I am speaking, or I speak).
Past: Я говорил. (I was speaking, or I used to speak).
Future: Я буду говорить. (I will be speaking).

The perfective verbs, as I wrote above, do not have Present, they can only be used in Past or in Future.

3. The difference between "сказать" and "поговорить" is in their meaning. "Cказать", as Wanja explained, indicates a one-time completed action:
Он сказал мне, что он не придёт. - He told me that he would not come.
"Поговорить" belongs to the class of verbs of the so-called "limited action" (which is indicated by the prefix "по-"). In fact, it means "to speak for some limited amount of time":
Я вчера поговорил с Петром. - Yesterday I talked to Peter (for a limited time duration, i.e. I had a conversation with him).

That was an excellent answer. I fully understand the concept of Perfective and Imperfective. My problem was the meaning of these two words but with the examples you provided the meaning was clarified.
As I understand skazat' is used with Dative: ona skazala nam, chto ... = She told us that ...
Pogovorit' is synonym of having a dialogue with someone and it is used with the Preposition: "c" + Instumental e.g. Я вчера поговорил с Петром
Pravil'no?

Originally Posted by Боб Уайтман

"Поговорить" belongs to the class of verbs of the so-called "limited action" (which is indicated by the prefix "по-"). In fact, it means "to speak for some limited amount of time":

I just wanted to repeat this so that Antonio doesn't overlook it, since there are quite a number of по- perfectives that have this meaning of "to do such-and-such for a little while [but then stop doing it]." So:

Я сидел на диване. = "I was sitting on the sofa [and sat and sat and sat, and kept on sitting...]"
Я посидел на диване. = "I sat for a little bit on the sofa [then I stood up and went outside for a walk]."