Duo Russian Grammar

30) Past & Infinitive

The infinitive stem

In Russian the Past tense and the Infinitive are formed from the same stem.

The forms are actually much easier than in the Present because there are only four forms in total for masculine/feminine/neuter + plural, similar to adjectives (the forms were participles once).

VERB masc fem neut pl
ending
быть был была́ бы́ло бы́ли
есть ел е́ла е́ло е́ли

«идти» and all its derivatives (пойти́, прийти́, найти́..) has a strange, irregular past stem:

walked, went: он пошёл, она пошла́, оно пошло́, они пошли́

For the masculine form, there is a phonetic simplification for verbs with infinitives in -чь,-сти/-зти, -зть/-сть. For example “мочь”(“can”), “ползти́”(crawl) and “лезть”(climb): он мог, полз, лез — no final Л here.

This skill mostly covers the past form of imperfective verbs (only «уста́ть» and «подожда́ть» are perfective). What it means for you is that when 2 or more such actions are mentioned, they were all happening at the same time or in no particular order. Why? Imperfective verbs like «идти́», «жить», «говори́ть» are by nature unspecific about their exact time frame.

  • they express repeated or prolonged action
  • they express action in progress
  • they can also express the fact that an action has or has not occured (with or without details on "when" it took place).

What about the present form?

For some verb types the two stems are nearly identical (понима́ть, говори́ть). Which is a good thing for you!