Yesterday: the Russian Past Tense
After the case system, Russian owes you something easy. Here it is: the past tense has four endings, total — and they agree with the speaker, not the subject's person. Ten minutes and you can tell your whole story.
The Easiest Tense
Drop -ть, add -л, then match gender and number:
| Who | Form |
|---|---|
| он (or a male «я/ты») | читал |
| она (or a female «я/ты») | читала |
| оно | читало |
| они / мы / вы | читали |
Я работал весь день. — Я работала весь день.
I worked all day. (said by a man — by a woman)
Note: The past is the one place Russian grammar asks who's speaking.
был, была, было, были
The invisible "to be" reappears in the past:
| Russian | English |
|---|---|
| Вчера я был дома. | Yesterday I was home. (m) |
| Она была на работе. | She was at work. |
| Мы были в Москве. | We were in Moscow. |
| Было холодно. | It was cold. (impersonal → neuter) |
Had and Hadn't
| Russian | English | Note |
|---|---|---|
| У меня была машина. | I had a car. | была agrees with машина (f) |
| У нас был кот. | We had a cat. | был agrees with кот (m) |
| У меня не́ было времени. | I had no time. | absence: always neuter было + genitive |
Time Anchors
| Russian | English |
|---|---|
| вчера | yesterday |
| вчера вечером | last night |
| в субботу | on Saturday |
| раньше | before / in the old days |
Раньше я жил в Лондоне, а теперь живу в Москве.
I used to live in London, and now I live in Moscow.
Note: раньше + past, теперь + present — the two-sentence autobiography.
One irregular worth knowing now: идти → шёл / шла / шли (вчера шёл дождь — it rained yesterday).
Common Mistakes
- Conjugating by person. Я читал, ты читал, он читал — same form. Gender and number are all that change.
- Agreeing не было. У меня не была времени is wrong twice — не́ было времени, fixed and neuter.
- Forgetting your own gender. Speakers pick their ending: a woman says я была, a man я был. Mixed groups: были.
What You Can Do Now
You can narrate anything that already happened — where you were, what you did, what you had and didn't have. Combined with time anchors, that's every story you've ever wanted to tell.