Introduction to Verbal Aspect in Russian: Which verb form to use? Learn strategies and hacks 

Привет Клаус!

Yes! I’ve had many DLI students over the years. I specialize in helping people get their threes on the DLPT and improve their OPI scores. Granted, I don’t talk about it much on my channel cuz people love to think I work for ЦРУ. But anyhow, I made many of these advanced grammar videos with people like yourself in mind. People who are fluent but who need to tidy up their grammar.

Yes Ma'am, I can see from your videos how helpful your teaching stiyle would be for the DLPT. I just signed up for you Patreon group and look forward to studying with you. большое спасибо! @@howjaneylearned

добро пожаловать в русскую грамматику! Ты попал!

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Печально нам такое .....

😀

Привет! Как жизнь?

@@howjaneylearned хорошо, сейчас еду с работы, как у тебя дела? Как ребятишки? 🤗

Поговорить has the meaning to talk for a little bit. Same with почитать. Grammatically it behaves like a perfect Ive but it doesn’t carry the meaning of a completed action. There are many verb pairs that don’t look related. For example: брать/взять, положить/класть

@@howjaneylearned > Поговорить has the meaning to talk for a little bit It's maybe true in some rare cases. But usually it doesn't impose any restrictions on a conversation length. For example, a girl may say to her boyfriend: "Нам нужно серьезно поговорить". And it doesn't imply at all that this conversation will be short (or easy)!

😂 почти ;)

Did you watch the whole video? I address this.

@@howjaneylearned Sure! I mean in the beginning you ask what these two sentences mean to a native speaker and it seems "Что ты сделал вчера" is a less natural phrase without a broader context. Probably because of "что + делать" (or probably because of "что + any verb or most of verbs"), since it implies a request for information (we are interested in naming an action rather than anything else) and it usually is conveyed by the imperfective. "Что ты делал вчера?" - is an independent question (you don't need to broad the context, you can easily start a conversation with this phrase, for example) whereas "Что ты сделал вчера?" requires some additional context, for example " А: Вчера я много отдыхал и спал. Б: Да? Это, конечно, здорово! А что-нибудь полезное ты вообще вчера сделал?".

Right, it would be a very strange question to start a conversation with :)

режет уши!

@@howjaneylearned 😀

@@howjaneylearned То же самое, слэнг - "Вас тут не стояло" 😀 Контекст: очередь в магазине, смысл выражения: кто-то хочет получить что-то, не имея на это права. 😀

@@howjaneylearned У Вас от природы "чувство языка".... возможно, гены, т.е. на уровне ДНК 😎 еще со времен PIE - праиндоевропейского языка с его 8-ю падежами и соотв. с его более 200 отглагольных форм по падежам, числам, родам и временам. Я как-то задался целью в оригинале прочитать надпись на санскрите (санскрит - наследник PIE, как и другие индоевропейские языки, но санскрит ближе всего к оригиналу - PIE, потом - литовский язык и славянские языки, потом - языки германской группы) на знаменитой "железной колонне" в Дели, Индия, которой более 1600 лет (!!!) - воздвигнута в 415 году н.э. аж, простояла все это время в тропическом влажном климате Индии (!!!!) и на ней НЕТ ржавчины, представляете ?! 😳 Каков же был мой ВОСТОРГ, когда я смог прочитать в оригинале, на санскрите, надпись на ней в алфавите деванагари, без словаря: "Царь Чандра, прекрасный, как полная Луна, воздвиг эту колонну.... " (с) и т.д. Причем, я смог понять игру слов: "Чандра" тут и имя собственное царя, и "Луна" ("Чендра") как имя нарицательное 😎 После чего, мне стало понятно название лунного спутника, который запустила Индия к Луне" - "Чандраян" - "Лунник" 😎 И кстати, я понял, что ВЕСЬ русский мат - т.е. обсценная лексика, имеет в санскрите БУКВАЛЬНОЕ значение и прямые когнаты с русским- с незначительными вариациями ТОЛЬКО😃 Например, русское слово "дурак/дура" БУКВАЛЬНО - "мелкая душонка", "дур атма" 😀 Слово из 3-х букв имеет буквальное значение "шип, колючка, иголка хвои" 😀😀😀 Вся остальная обсценная лексика в русском, впрочем, как и ВСЯ родственная иерархия - "сноха", "зять", "деверь", "шурин" и т.д. имеет прямые когнаты в санскрите ! Видимо, у Вас примерно то же самое - "тяга к корням" инстинктивная, а потому такая идеальная фонетика и вообще "чувство языка" 😎

My Patreon! Plus many many many more 😊 My patreon link should be on my home page of RU-vid

Haha. So true! I always warn students that these are merely STRATEGIES and they will inevitably at some point hear a native say something that seems to break “rules” and that doesn’t mean that I lied to them, it just means the topic is wayyyyy more complex than most college classes will cover. And I find that trying to learn about aspect from natives is even more confusing. Where do you teach?

@@howjaneylearned Native speakers are not much use when it comes to explaining grammar. Ask a native speaker of English about the difference between "some" and "any." And Russians (especially men) like to pose as an "authority" on any question that comes up. But there are linguists (native and other) who have paid a lot of attention to Russian aspect. You probably need to dilute and simplify for students, but you can avoid giving guidelines that will show up as unreliable later on. I think the "keywords" approach is only attractive because it seems to offer a way to make the choice of aspect without considering the meaning of the sentence in contest. Nowadays I am working for a private ccompany that does language training for the government, etc.

Yes, in the first example this is just a константация факта. We're not interested in the result. Не скажут is possible but it would be translated as "They WILL never say". English-brained students think they are saying, "my parents never SAY I love you". They don't realize that говорить can translate as both "to speak" and "to say".

That's an interesting example because мыла is imperfective, in fact (помыла или вымыла being the perfective form). So, technically you're asking about the process, when you're obviously interested in the result. But native speakers do say it that way often. I guess just because it's easier (shorter) to say it.