Russian Past Tense: How to Form It

The past tense is the simplest thing in Russian. This article will be a relief for you, exhale. The past tense has only four very predictable endings. By the end of this article you'll be able to talk about yesterday with confidence.

The one big idea

In the present tense, a verb changes depending on who does the action: я читаю, ты читаешь, он читает… six forms to remember.

The past tense doesn't care who did the action. It only cares about one thing: was the subject masculine, feminine, neuter, or plural? And those four forms are the same four you already know from gender and number - so you're not really learning anything new. You're reusing something you already have.

How to form it

Take the verb's infinitive, remove -ть, and add one of four endings:



A few more verbs, same pattern:

• делать (to do) - делал, делала, делало, делали
• говорить (to speak, to talk) - говорил, говорила, говорило, говорили
• работать (to work) - работал, работала, работало, работали

Notice that these endings match the gender endings of nouns (no ending — masculine, -а/-я — feminine, -о/-е/-ё — neuter, also -ы/-и — one of the set of endings for plural) — a very important pattern that shows up in many places in Russian.

The shift English speakers have to make

In English, "I worked," "you worked," "she worked" all look the same. In Russian, the verb tells us the gender of the person speaking:

• Я работал дома. - I worked at home. (said by a man)
• Я работала дома. - I worked at home. (said by a woman)

Same "I," different forms of the verb. So when you speak about yourself in the past, you choose the ending based on your gender.

The most useful word in this whole lesson: был

In the present tense, Russian hides the verb "to be":

• Я студент. - I am a student.
• Он в Москве. - He is in Moscow.
• Мы дома. - We are home.

But in the past, "to be" comes back, and you'll need it constantly:

• Я был в Москве. - I was in Moscow.
• Она была дома. - She was at home.
• Это было вчера. - That was yesterday.
• Они были в магазине. - They were in the shop.

Learn these four words well. They unlock half of everyday past-tense conversation.

Words that signal the past

Some time words tell you (and your listener) that we're talking about the past. They're worth collecting:

• вчера - yesterday
• позавчера - the day before yesterday
• раньше - before, earlier
• в прошлом году - last year
• в прошлом месяце - last month
• на прошлой неделе - last week
• давно - a long time ago

Examples:

• Вчера я много работал. - Yesterday I worked a lot.
• Раньше она жила в Киеве. - She used to live in Kyiv.

A few irregular verbs to recognize

Most verbs follow the clean -л / -ла / -ло / -ли rule. A small group don't - and you only need to recognize two of them for now:

идти́ (to go on foot) becomes completely different:

он шёл, она шла, оно шло, они шли

Notice the ё appears only in the masculine шёл. (Yes, this is the one irregular verb worth memorizing early — you'll meet it everywhere.)

мочь (to be able to) loses its -л in the masculine:

он мог, она могла́, оно могло́, они могли́

Don't worry about the full list of this kind of verb now — just know that a handful exist, and meet them one at a time.

Reflexive verbs (-ся / -сь)

Verbs ending in -ся (like учиться - to study) follow the same rule as in the present tense. First remove the reflexive ending (-ся), conjugate the verb normally, then add -ся after a consonant and -сь after a vowel:

• он учил + -ся = учился
• она учила + -сь = училась
• оно учило + -сь = училось
• они учили + -сь = учились

One quick note about "which past?"

You may have noticed Russian sometimes has two verbs for one English verb: читать and прочитать both mean "to read," and both make a past tense the same easy way (читал / прочитал). The formation is identical. The choice between them — process vs. result — is a whole topic of its own, called aspect, and it deserves its own article. In terms of past tense the imperfective (читал) sounds more like the past continuous, while the perfective (прочитал) is closer to the present perfect or past perfect:

• Он читал книгу вчера два часа. - He was reading a book yesterday for two hours.
• Она уже прочитала всю книгу. - She has already read the whole book.

A few common mistakes to avoid

Before you go, here are the slips almost everyone makes at first — notice them once and they lose their power:

• Using a present ending in the past. The verb has to end in -л / -ла / -ло / -ли, never -ю or -ешь. (я работаю = I work; я работал = I worked.)
• A woman saying я работал. If you're female, it's я работала — the ending follows you, not the English "I."
• Forgetting был / была́ / бы́ло / бы́ли. The past needs "to be," even though the present quietly hides it.
• Using шёл for "she went." Only "he" is шёл; "she" is шла.

What's next? Here's the lovely part: once you can make the past tense, you're just one tiny word away from saying "I would." Add бы to the past form you've just learned, and я пошёл becomes я пошёл бы — "I would go." → The Russian Subjunctive: How to Say "Would"

You did it

And that's the whole past tense. One rule, four endings, and a single new habit: match the verb to who the subject is, not to "I / you / he." Add был / была́ / бы́ло / бы́ли, sprinkle in a few time words like вчера or раньше, and you can already tell someone about your entire day yesterday.

Now make it yours: don't just read it, use it. Head over to the exercises in the «Exercise» tab and try forming the past tense yourself — start with the imperfective sentences and check your answers as you go. Five minutes of doing beats an hour of re-reading, I promise.