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:

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:

Had and Hadn't

Time Anchors

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.