Dictionary of Spoken Russian/Russian-English/Section 27

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search

§27. IRREGULAR PRESENT

A few verbs have a pr stem ending in consonant plus [y]; these insert a vowel in the imv form: пить "to drink," пью, пьёт; the imv is пей, пейте.

Some irregular verbs have the pr like Classes One, Two, and Three, but the pr stem ends in a consonant other than [n, j]: несу "I carry," несёшь, несёт, несём, несёте, несут, imv неси, несите. All those whose pr stem ends in [g] and nearly all whose pr stem ends in [k] replace these consonants by [ž] and [č] respectively before the endings that we write with [j]: могу "I can," можешь, может, можем, можете, могут, imv помоги "help"; пеку "I bake," печёшь, печёт, печём, печёте, пекут; imv пеки.

The verbs давать "to give," даю, даёт; -знавать (used chiefly in compounds) "to know," -знаю, -знаёт; -ставать (used chiefly in compounds) "to stand," -стаю, -стаёт, form the imv and prger as if they were regular verbs: давай, давайте, давая.

Only four verbs are entirely irregular in the present forms:

бежать "to run": бегу, бежишь, бежит, бежим, бежите, бегут, imv беги
дать "to give": дам, дашь, даст, дадим, дадите, дадут, imv дай
есть "to eat": ем, ешь, ест, едим, едите, едят, imv ешь
хотеть "to want"; хочу, хочешь, хочет, хотим, хотите, хотят, imv хоти