Немно́го о языке́ 7.5 На катке́

Exceptional Past Tense Forms

You already know that to form the past tense of Russian verbs, you remove the –ть of the infinitive, and add –л.  When the infinitive does not end in a vowel plus –ть, you will need to learn the past tense forms.  There are two typical patterns.

Pattern 1: The past tense endings (-л, -ла, -ло, -ли) are all present, but the stem is unpredictable.

	пойти́ (perf)	есть (impf)	упа́сть (perf)
	to go, to head out	to eat	to fall
masc.	пошёл	ел	упа́л
fem.	пошла́	е́ла	упа́ла
neut.	пошло́	е́ло	упа́ло
pl.	пошли́	е́ли	упа́ли

Pattern 2: The masculine past tense forms end in the final consonant of the stem, to which –ла, -ло, -ли added to form the feminine, neuter and plural forms.

	мочь (impf)	помо́чь (perf)
	to be able	to help
masc.	мог	помо́г
fem.	могла́	помогла́
neut.	могло́	помогло́
pl.	могли́	помогли́

More on the Verb боле́ть/заболе́ть

Джош: То́лько рука́ у меня́ немно́го боли́т. (Only my hand hurts a bit.)

In addition to the meaning “to be sick,” боле́ть can also be used as the equivalent of “to ache”/”to hurt.”  In this meaning, боле́ть conjugates like a second conjugation verb, with a stem in бол- The body part that aches is the subject of the verb, and the person whose body part aches is expressed by the construction у + genitive.

People and Their Feelings

In the episode, the characters comment:

Мне уже́ хо́лодно.	I am cold already.
Тебе́ всегда́ хо́лодно.	You are always cold.

You already know that weather conditions in Russian are expressed with adverbs. In this section you see that when Russian expresses a person’s experience of heat, cold, and other feelings, we also use an adverb for the condition.   The person who experiences this condition will be in the dative case. As with weather expressions, to make the past tense of such sentences we use the neuter form бы́ло, and for the future tense the form бу́дет.

Some other typical feelings expressed with dative case + adverbs are:

Мне жа́рко.	I am hot.
Нам о́чень тепло́.	We feel very warm.
Мне ску́чно.	I am bored.
Мне бы́ло гру́стно.	I was sad.
Мне интере́сно.	I am curious; I wonder
Нам бы́ло ве́село.	We had fun.

Упражне́ние 1

Read the statements below and pick out the logical conclusions.

Making Suggestions:  The “Let’s” Construction

Дава́й встре́тимся у гла́вного вхо́да на стадио́н «Труд», на у́лице Ле́нина.

Дава́йте пойдём в кафе́.

The form дава́йте (or дава́й for people you address with ты) can be used in Russian to start out sentences that make inclusive invitations similar to English’s  “Let’s …” Дава́йте is followed by the conjugated мы form of a perfective verb when you are suggesting a specific, concrete activity. 

If you are suggesting a repeated or regular activity, you can follow дава́й(те) by an imperfective verb in the infinitive form.