Thread: хотелось бы посмотреть, кто ей понравился; why perfective past?

I think it's good idea to perceive verbs with "по" and without "по" like different verbs. Don't try to perceive them like forms of one verb for different tenses (conception of verb teens works in english, but it doesn't work in russian).

понравился says ' I began the process of liking...', and has nothing to say about whether that liking continued or not.

Ok, lets recall the english verb "impress".
If I say: "It impressed me" or "It has impressed me", what can you say about whether this emotion continued or not? The verb "понравился" works same. Both verbs focus us on bright moment in past, when we were feeling something, but both don't describe our state after this moment.

I think it's not hard to come up with sentences were "поработал" and "работал" sound almost same like "понравился" и "нравился".

P.S.
плакать=to cry
поплакать=to begin and finish crying
заплакать=to start crying

работать=to work
поработать=to begin and finish work
заработать=to earn/to get something through process of working/acting.
Hmm... Maybe grafrich is right and sometimes they are just different words.

P.P.S.
I think it is just subject of memorizing:
ЗАПЛАКАТЬ - "Начать плакать"
ПОПЛАКАТЬ - "Провести некоторое время, плача"

Actually I didn't notice that Летать and лететь are 2 different verbs; I don't know if I understand the difference.
Летал He flew. (there and back, multidirectional
Летел He flew. (but didn't come back, unidirectional)
I think this is going beyond what I understand, I haven't really looked into verbs of motion yet, I'm aware that they treat aspect differently to other Russian verbs.