Thread: Verb Conjugation---AHHHHHHH

Hi!

I'm a latin student, and I'm so used to verbs ending in -at, -et, -et, -it, and now I'm abosultely confused. I don't know how to tell what conjugation a verb is, 1st conjugation ends in an "e" before the actual ending, and the second conjugation ends in "ee" before the actual ending. But now I'm finding out that some verbs are exceptions and use both endings, which makes it so much more confusing. Also, could somone explain the infinitive endings to me for russian (I know what an infinitive is), because apparently you need to know it to determine the conjugation... as you do in latin.

Thanks to whomever can help me!

There are many endings, and many exceptions.

The basic first conjugation ending is -ать, -ять or -еть which makes up most words. Russian has an aspect system which I'm not sure if latin has.
изучать -> изучаю (to study in depth)
болеть -> болеешь (to be sick)
терять -> теряю (to lose)

The -ить ending is just as common and makes the second conjugation endings. Unlike first conjugation endings, the и dissapears too.
говорить -> говорю (to speak)
любить -> любишь (to love)

There are a lot more endings and irregularities, but these are enough to keep you busy for some time in your studying as they account for many of the verbs.

K, that makes more sense. Damn irregularities!!!! Latin has 6 irregularities and that's it, but oh well. What do you mean, aspect system? Also, when I copy vocab onto notecards, should I write down the infinitive with the conjugaton.... or what? I got a little help from a russian woman at my school, but apparently she's not too used to talk about cases and stuff about russian in english.... so it got a little confusing. I can conjugate just Работать
Я Работаю
Ты Работаешь
Он Работает
Мы Работаем
Вы Работаете
Они Работают
And that's it. For now, I'm just adding the endings where I think sound right. I only have a few vocab words written down, and I'm still working on memorizing them fully.

Strangely, that was the first verb I learned too...

I'd copy the word down with the infinitive and conjugation only if it's irregular, and even so, just the stem.

By aspect system I mean perfective and imperfective. imperfective are the verbs you learn first and are used for present tense actions. They are basicly just things that are happening continuously or aren't finished yet. The perfective aspect is used for things that are complete or only happen once. These are used for past and future tense. Although the imperfective can be used for these too, it's less common.

Я работаю. - I am working.
Я работал. - I was working.
Я буду работать. - I will be working.
Я поработаю. - I will work.
Я поработал. - I worked.

For now, you will mostly use just the imperfective for present tense.

Yea, latin has that. Sooo... I have a headstart on how to use them. Except, for latin it's
Laboro-I am working
Laborabo-I will work
Laborabam- I was working (Imprefect)
Laboravi- I was working (Perfect)
We just don't call them "Aspects".
All I know is the present tense. And still I don't know those vowels and consonants. Strangely enough, there are a few words that sounds like their latin equivalents... wierd.
So I need to know those, and and infinitive, right? (Infinitives just end in:Ть, right? It doesn't change depending on it's conjugation?)

Oh, also, a few more questions. I heard that word order doesn't really matter much in russian, just like latin, and I was wondering how to conjugate "I am" in russian. It's irregular isn't it? In latin, it's:
Sum
es
est
sumus
estis
sunt
*esse=to be*

The infinitives all end in ть but generally the infinitive ending includes the vowel before it. So the infinitive endings are refered to as ать, еть, ять, ить, овать, евать, ыть etc.

I'm not sure what you mean by does the infinitve change. Well ya it does. Thats how you conjugate it. Or do you mean the stem? Sometimes the stem changes, but usually only in irregular verbs or predictable irregular verbs.

EDIT: I saw your other question
There is no word for I am in russian. You simply say I then the what you are. If it is a noun, then you put a dash between the two words otherwise you just place it after
Я большой. - I'm big.
Я голодный. - I'm hungry.
Я-кот. - I'm a cat
Я-пирог. - I'm a pie.

Sometimes there is a word for is...бывать

It describes something that "usually is" or "sometimes is"

For example:

вечером он всегда бывает дома - He is always at home at night.

он бывает очень груб — he is very rude sometimes

Wow, I knew 2 words out of that. Oh my god! I understood some russian!!!!! YAY!!!! I have a stupid vocab problem again.... grr. I make flashcards and do russian to english, and I consistently forget the easiest words.

Russian and Latin come from the same protolanguage. Compare stems
Russ дом- house and Eng/Latin domicile
раб- work and arb- (whatever it is in latin).
месяц (formerly an N before the S) month, and mens-

For the verb you can probably get by with learning only 3 forms, all the others can be generated from there.

Infinitive, 1st pers. sg., 2nd pers. sg.

from the Inf. you get the past-tense forms.

работа- ть past forms: работал, работав, -работанный.
A handful of irregulars like нести, сесть, печь, колоть.
past tense:
нёс, несла, пёк, пекла, колол, колола.
there are some phonetic rules that specify when the л is dropped.


From the 1 and 2 sg you get the consonant shift if any, the conjugation type (there are two), and any accent shifts.

работаю, работаешь
несу, несёшь
пеку, печёшь
колю, колешь.

There really are only 5 or 6 true irregulars, such as
дать give дам, дашь, даст
есть eat ем, ешь, ест
есть be usually omitted but есть sg. and суть pl. are sometimes used in extremely narrow context.
хотеть, хочу, хочешь, хочет (1st conj.), хотим, хотите, хотят (2nd conj.)
бежать бегу бежишь бежит бежим бежите бегут
where 1st sg and 3rd pl are 1st conj and the rest are 2nd conj.)
some verbs that end in -ну-ть lost the ну syllable in the past, some don't.
That may be all there is, I'm not sure.

Re syntax: much more flexible than other European languages. Most variations convey different nuances of meaning.

Originally Posted by Orpheus

Oh, also, a few more questions. I heard that word order doesn't really matter much in russian, just like latin

It is not entirely true. A sentence can be rearranged without losing its meaning completely and still remain grammatically correct, but emphasis of the statement might become different. In quite a number of cases an abnormal order of words would be just plain abnormal and unusable, so it would sound like Yoda's "wisdom".

Hmm. Makes sense.... kinda. I learned a little bit about the past and future tenses, and right now I'm making up like a small overview of what I know, including vocab words that I should know by now. but for the past tense, you drop the infinitive ending and add -L to the ending of the verb plus a pronoun before the verb. But, then you add an -a or an -o after the "L" depending on your subject. Now, Because I'm a guy, I just take the -L and add nothing to the ending, right?

---And why is it that when websites are trying to explain something to you, they give you a russian word without it's english meaning. that confuses me, and it's partly why I'm asking so many damn questiosn about verb conjugations and endings and stuff.

Originally Posted by Orpheus

But, then you add an -a or an -o after the "L" depending on your subject. Now, Because I'm a guy, I just take the -L and add nothing to the ending, right?

Correct. Masculine goes with -л, feminine with -ла, neuter with -ло. Plural goes with -ли regardless of gender.

K, good. But I just realized that I wrote down that you don't use -L for singular masculine subjects in my notes. Is that just for the 3 infinitive endings?
EX:
-Чь
-Ти
-Нуть

Let's see... These are examples with your endings:

Беречь (to guard, to protect) - Он берёг (она берегла - feminine, оно берегло - neuter). No -л ending for masculine subject.

Идти (to go)- Он шёл (она шла, онo шлo). The stem is changed, the endings are still -л,-ла, -лo; but
Ползти (to crawl) - Он полз (она ползла, оно ползло).

Обмануть (to deceive) - Он обманул (она обманула, онo обманулo). It works. I can't think of a word where the general rule does not work with -нуть. Do you have an example?

Nope.. I don't. I just read the Verb Collection on masterrussian and it said that those endings are exceptions are something like that.

About the loss of past-tense Л

There are rules governing this, accompanied by lists of exceptions. But in the underlying language (the subject of morphophonemics), -L- is the past-tense marker. It is always there, but drops out in spelling and pronunciation in accordance with specific rules.
How do we know it was there? We look at other Slavic languages that still have it. E.g., Polish past tense of what corresponds to нести carry is: ni

You'd have to show me where it is, because I do not see how verbs with -нуть are exceptions.

K, thanks so much. Adhoc, Let me find the page real fast where it says the whole exception thingy.

K, got it. http://masterrussian.com/aa021500a.shtml
It talks about it right before it starts getting into how only the singular forms change in singular form.