Perfective or imperfective? Part 1 - Some aspects of verb usage

Hello, I'm back! Recently I've received an email from a Russian language learner (thank you, Robert! :)) that motivated me to proceed with giving some grammar tips. So today we will be discussing a very interesting but pretty difficult topic, namely, the grammatical aspect of verbs. This is the category many languages including English lack, so even if you're an advanced learner, you may still have some questions about it. Today we'll talk about how to use verbs of different aspects in a simple sentence, next time we'll be talking about compound and complex sentences, since there are additional tricks there. We'll also won't touch upon verbs of motion - they deserve a separate post.

In general, there are several cases when we need either a perfective or an imperfective aspect verb. For the imperfective aspect they are: a) description of the process, not the result, b) description of a long (especially when you mention how long it took) or regular action and c) just mentioning the action; for the perfective case: a) description of a result, not the process itself and b) description of the action that took (or will take) place once. Let's now see how these principles work.

First, let's talk about duration of an action. Normally, if we mention duration, we use imperfective aspect verbs. But if you're talking about time the action was/will be completed within (if you think the fact that it was/will be completed is the main thing you address), please use perfective aspect verbs (have you already noticed that there is no Present Tense form for this type of verbs?). Interestingly, if the action wasn't completed (or the result wasn't achieved), we normally use imperfective aspect verbs. For example, "Я сварил рис за пятнадцать минут" is used when you'd like to emphasize that it was cooked after this time. One can say, "Посмотри! Я сварил рис всего за пятнадцать минут!" - to highlight that it took them just 15 minutes to complete. At the same time, you may say "Я варил рис пятнадцать минут" just to mention how (how long) you cooked it, or if you didn't achieved any result: "Представляешь, я варил рис целых пятнадцать минут, но он так и не сварился!" If you think that the action took a long time (and want to emphasize it), you're also likely to use verbs of imperfective aspect: "Я весь/целый вечер простоял у плиты!" (that means you spent the whole evening cooking). 

As you could notice, we often use imperfective aspect verbs with the words "целый", "весь", describing the period of time. Another hint for test takers: mentioning duration, we need the preposition "за" with the period of time only when  a perfective aspect verb is used (you can see it from the examples above). 

The second point is regularity. Here it is more or less clear: if you're talking about regular actions (especially using the adverbs "часто", "иногда", "редко" or mentioning that the action took/takes/will take place каждый час/день/год etc., ежедневно, ежегодно etc., or раз в час/день/год etc.), then use the imperfective verb. 

I also have a couple of examples illustrating the last trend, which is the description of the process or result of an action. My parents call me nearly every day; mostly they're interested in what I was doing during the day, so they ask: "Что ты сегодня делала?" However, when my boss wants to know what I've done (generally, she doesn't care what I spend my time for; the only thing she is interested in is the result), she asks: "Что ты (за) сегодня сделала?"

There are also some special cases of verb usage. More sophisticated ones will be described later (in one of the following posts), so here I'll just list the basic meanings: if we describe the condition or location of someone or something, or talk about someone's talent or general capability to do something, we normally use imperfective aspect verbs. If we describe an action that was completed in a single moment, or something that happened suddenly, we use perfective aspect verbs. Sounds logical, doesn't it?

Ok, that's it for today, in a couple of days we'll be looking at what's going on when there are two actions which are simultaneous (or in the case one of them is a background action, so actions are 'partially simultaneous'), or one action follows another.