Language/Ukrainian/Grammar/Verbs---Past-Tense

Ukrainian → Grammar → Verbs - Past Tense

As a complete beginner learning Ukrainian, it's important to understand how to form and use past tense verbs in the language. In this lesson, I will teach you the basics of past tense verbs in Ukrainian, including the different types of verbs and their conjugations.

After mastering this lesson, these related pages might interest you: Introduction to Ukrainian Grammar & Possessive pronouns.

Formation of Past Tense Verbs

In Ukrainian, there are two types of verbs in the past tense: imperfective and perfective. Both types have different conjugations depending on the subject and number.

Imperfective Verbs

To form the imperfective past tense, you need to attach a suffix to the infinitive form of the verb. The suffixes for each person and number are as follows:

Person	Suffix
I (singular)	-в (v)
You (singular, informal)	-ла (-la)
He/She/It (singular)	-в (v)
We (plural)	-ли (ly)
You (plural, formal)	-ли (ly)
They (plural)	-ли (ly)

For example, let's take the verb "говорити" (to speak). To say "I spoke" in the past tense, you add the suffix "-в" to the infinitive form:

Я говорив. (Ya hovoryv.)

To say "We spoke" in the past tense, you add the suffix "-ли" to the infinitive form:

Ми говорили. (My hovoryly.)

Perfective Verbs

To form the perfective past tense, you need to know the stem of the verb. The stem is found by dropping the last two letters of the infinitive form of the verb. To this stem, you attach the appropriate conjugation endings. Like the imperfective verbs, perfective verbs have different conjugations depending on the subject and number.

Here are the conjugations for the perfective past tense:

Person	Ending
I (singular)	-в (v)
You (singular, informal)	-в (-v)
He/She/It (singular)	-в (-v)
We (plural)	-ли (ly)
You (plural, formal)	-ли (ly)
They (plural)	-ли (ly)

For example, let's take the verb "знайти" (to find). To say "I found" in the past tense, you drop the last two letters "ти" from the infinitive form to get the stem "знай", and then add the ending "-в" to the stem:

Я знайшов. (Ya znayshov.)

To say "We found" in the past tense, you add the ending "-ли" to the stem:

Ми знайшли. (My znayshly.)

Irregular Verbs

Like many languages, Ukrainian has irregular verbs that don't follow the standard conjugation rules outlined above. Some common irregular verbs in the past tense include "бути" (to be), "робити" (to do), and "мати" (to have). To conjugate these verbs in the past tense, you just have to memorize their forms:

Verb	English	Past Tense
бути	to be	був/була/було (buv/bula/bulo)
робити	to do	робив/робила/робило (robyv/robyla/robylo)
мати	to have	мав/мала/мало (mav/mala/malo)

For example, "Я була в кіно" means "I was at the cinema", where "була" (bula) is the past tense of the verb "бути" (to be).

Usage of Past Tense Verbs

In Ukrainian, the past tense is used to talk about actions or events that happened in the past. It's important to remember to use the appropriate verb form (imperfective or perfective) depending on the meaning you want to convey.

Here are some examples to illustrate the usage of past tense verbs in Ukrainian:

• Я говорив з ним вчора. (Ya hovoryv z nym vchora.) - I talked to him yesterday.
• Я знайшов свої ключі. (Ya znayshov svoji klyuchi.) - I found my keys.
• Вона робила домашнє завдання. (Vona robyla domashnye zavdannya.) - She did her homework.

Remember to pay attention to the context and the meaning you want to convey when using past tense verbs in Ukrainian.

Sources

• Минулий час - Past tense in Ukrainian - Ukrainian Lessons
• Ukrainian grammar - Wikipedia
• Tenses in Ukrainian

Other Lessons

• Possessive Pronouns
• Plural
• Present tense Irregular verbs
• Feminine
• how to use numerals and nouns in pairs
• Past imperfective Tense
• Declension of pronoun this
• Cases
• Plurals
• Verbs Reflexive and Imperative