Purpose

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to form the future tense for both imperfective and perfective verbs, using their genuinely different structures.

Lesson Explanation

Building directly on Part 4, Lesson 1’s crucial fact — that perfective verbs have no present tense, only a future — this lesson covers the two structurally different ways Russian forms the future, one for each aspect.

The perfective future is genuinely simple: perfective verbs conjugate with the exact same endings as imperfective verbs use in the present tense (Part 2, Lesson 1), but the meaning is future because the verb itself is perfective: прочитать → я прочитаю, ты прочитаешь, он прочитает… (I will read [to completion], etc.) — structurally identical in form to a present-tense conjugation, distinguished only by the verb’s aspect.

The imperfective future, genuinely more complex, requires the future tense of быть (previewed in Part 4, Lesson 2’s past-tense coverage, but appearing here in its own future form: буду, будешь, будет, будем, будете, будут) plus the IMPERFECTIVE INFINITIVE: Я буду читать. (I will be reading/will read, ongoing or repeated — imperfective.)

The genuinely important meaning contrast this creates, mirroring the past-tense contrast from the previous lesson: Я буду читать книгу. (I will read/be reading the book — process, ongoing, possibly without finishing) versus Я прочитаю книгу. (I will read the whole book — a single completed action with a definite result). Choosing correctly here is genuinely as important to natural-sounding Russian as choosing the right case, and native speakers notice aspect errors immediately, much like a case ending error.

Practice Questions