Language/Armenian/Grammar/Simple-Past

Simple Past in Armenian

In Armenian the simple past is used to express action that was completed in the past. It is formed by replacing ալ/ել endings with աց/եց and the special endings.

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The great majority of verbs change in the same way as shown below with գնալ “to go” and բերել “to bring”.

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1) Անցյալ տարի նրանք գնացին Անգլիա։ Last year they went to England.

2) Արամն Իրանից նվերներ բերեց ձեզ համար։ Aram brought gifts for you from Iran.

Some irregular verbs form their simple past with “ա” endings, like գտնել - “to find”, տեսնել - “to see”, տանել - “to carry”, ստանալ - “to receive” and իմանալ - “to know”, “to find out”. Below verbs գտնել and տեսնել are conjugated.

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Here are two sentences using simple past:

1) Վերջապես դուք գտաք մեր տունը։ Finally you found our home.

2) Նրանք Հրաչին գրադարանում տեսան։ They saw Hrach in the library.

Still other irregular verbs follow the above “ա” endings but also change their stem. The verbs գալ, ուտել and լինել are the most used irregular verbs of this type.

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Sources

https://slaviccenters.duke.edu/sites/slaviccenters.duke.edu/files/handbook_of_armenian.pdf

Related Lessons

• Conditional Mood
• The Present Perfect Tense
• Definite Pronouns
• The Verb to Have
• The Nominative Case
• The Past Subjunctive Mood
• Adverbs
• Personal Pronouns
• Questions
• Indefinite Article