Russian lessons, anybody?

[MrKrov]

:-|

[Pirka]

Oops. Not semantic. Let's just stick with... prefixes and things.
Yes.

[Ear of the Sphinx]

Russian is actually a very dumb language verb-wise. I mean, how the heck does a verb's semantic makeup determine its perfectivity?

So do other Slavic languages.

[Aevas]

Xonen made some nice Russian lessons on the old board. I think there might be some by Mecislau on the ZBB as well.

[Pirka]

Russian is actually a very dumb language verb-wise. I mean, how the heck does a verb's semantic makeup determine its perfectivity?

So do other Slavic languages.

I do realize that. It's a dumb system anyway.
Although... I do have more trouble with cases.

[Maximillian]

Russian is actually a very dumb language verb-wise. I mean, how the heck does a verb's semantic makeup determine its perfectivity?

What do you mean?

[conlangconstructor]

I'm guessing: она писала "imp." compared to она написала "perf."

I think this type of imperfective - perfective distinction is perfectly fine.

[Pirka]

＾In a sense, it's perfectly fine. Until the moment when you discover that the distinctions seem to be completely arbitrary on the learning level. You can have all the fun in the world with learning two separate forms for (relatively) the same verb.

Oh well. I'm not in a position to judge a language. Opinions, opinions.

Does anybody have any requests for an explanation of something they are confused about? I'll be happy to answer and probably could write a rough-ish lesson based on feedback.

[Darkgamma]

＾In a sense, it's perfectly fine. Until the moment when you discover that the distinctions seem to be completely arbitrary on the learning level. You can have all the fun in the world with learning two separate forms for (relatively) the same verb.

Actually, it's not only two forms (atleast in SerboCroatian):

писати - to write (i)
написати - to write (p)
исписати - to write (out) (p)
записати - to write (down) (p)
написивати - to write/be writing (i)
исписивати - to write/be writing (out) (i)
записивати - to write/be writing (down) (i)

ultimately derived from OCS word for letter (can't type out)

The brackets indicate the most frequent meaning and the aspect: i - for imperfective aspect, p - for perfective aspect. I'm not sure these are all the forms and there may be and additional sever or eight from "write" =3

[Testyal]

＾In a sense, it's perfectly fine. Until the moment when you discover that the distinctions seem to be completely arbitrary on the learning level. You can have all the fun in the world with learning two separate forms for (relatively) the same verb.

That and all of the morphemes kill my mind.

[Sankon]

As I'm a rusty native speaker, I can help but won't be of much help teaching, 'cause I never learned to write properly. :P

[Pirka]

Тебе стоит научиться! Читай побольше книг! (Я на самом деле очень мало читаю, но граммата меня почему-то не покидает. Можно справиться и без книжек. )