# Forum Learning Russian Language Getting Started with Russian MR.com Lesson Questions  Indeterminate vs. determinate verbs of motion.

## Theedrich

How can one decide when to use the indeterminate and when the determinate form of motion verbs, e.g., ХОДИТЬ versus ИДТИ?  Спасибо!

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## xXHoax

Another set of terms often used is "Concrete" versus "Abstract", or simply "Unidirectional" versus "multidirectional".
It's important to note that both any of the prefix-less pairs of motion verbs are imperfective. So both ходить and идти have present, future, and past ongoing forms.
Other than that, the determinate/concrete/unidirectional verb идти is used for "go" when the surrounding context is describing motion in one direction, whereas ходить is used for things like round-trips, repeated trips, or a kind of aimless wandering.
Here's sort of a simplistic distinction example:
шёл - was going (talking about just one direction, that could be part of a whole trip. Used in: "while I *was going* to school one day")
ходил - used to go (with an implication of return to beginning. Used in: "while I *was going* to school those days" , implying the whole trip there and back from school) 
The Youtube Channel Russian Grammar has many very good videos on the topic:  https://www.youtube.com/user/russiangrammar

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