Simple vs compound future tense in Russian
Simplifying Russian Tenses: Your Essential Guide: Simple vs compound future tense in Russian
The simple future tense in Russian is formed using perfective verbs conjugated with personal endings, indicating a completed or one-time future action. The compound future tense is formed by combining the future tense of the verb “to be” (быть) with the infinitive of an imperfective verb, expressing ongoing, repeated, or habitual future actions.
Simple Future Tense
- Uses perfective verbs.
- Formed by adding present tense personal endings to the perfective verb stem.
- Indicates a completed future action or result.
- Example: Она сделает это завтра. (She will do it tomorrow.)
Compound Future Tense
- Uses imperfective verbs.
- Formed by the future tense of “быть” (e.g., буду, будешь) + infinitive of the imperfective verb.
- Expresses ongoing or habitual actions in the future, similar to English future continuous.
- Example: Я буду читать книгу завтра. (I will be reading a book tomorrow.)
This distinction aligns with Russian verbal aspect, where perfective verbs denote completed actions and imperfective verbs denote ongoing or repeated actions.
Thus, Russian future tense has a clear aspect-based division: the simple future with perfective verbs focuses on completion, while the compound future with imperfective verbs focuses on process or duration of the action in the future.