Language/Ukrainian/Grammar/Verbs

In Ukrainian, verbs have aspects (like Polish or Russian) and tenses (just like English).

There is also moods, but that is a bit complicated so we'll just leave that for now. Let's just focus on two main things:

Verbs conjugate according to number and person (and gender in some tenses). Here is how an example of a verb in the present tense

Verbs in Ukrainian language can be imperfective or perfective. Perfective tense presents an action as finished and emphasizes its result. Compare:

Мама готувала обід. (Mom was cooking a lunch.) - imerfective tense

Мама приготувала обід. (Mom has cooked a lunch.) - perfective tense

Imperfective sentence answers the question: "Що робити?" - читати, робити. Perfective sentence answers the question: "Що зробити?"- прочитати, зробити.

How to create a perfective form of the verb? There are few ways.

1) The most common one: adding a prefixe to the imperfective verb (читати - прочитати).

2) Changing a suffix of the imperfective verb (стрибати - стрибнути).

3) By alternating vowels and consonant sounds in the roots (затерігати - застерегти). There is no specific rule, every time you have to refer to a dictionary. My advice is to memorize the most common verbs. Here they are:

	Imperfective verb	Perfective verb
to read	читати	прочитати
to cook	готувати	приготувати
to write	писати	написати
to understand	розуміти	зрозуміти
to think	думати	подумати
to see	дивитися	подивитися
to take	брати	взяти
to make a call	телефонувати	зателефонувати
to think	думати	подумати
to say	говорити	сказати

Source

https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/17637411/Overview-Of-Ukrainian-Grammar-UK-GRAMMAR-PORTAL

https://ukrainian-zone.com/series/ukrainian-grammar/09-verbs-perfective-and-imperfective-forms