Verbs of locomotion

	multidirectional (indeterminate)	unidirectional (determinate)	perfective
to go	ходить	идти	пойти
to go (veh.)	ездить	ехать	поехать
to run	бегать	бежать	побежать
to fly	летать	лететь	полететь
to swim/sail	плавать	плыть	поплыть
to lead	водить	вести	повести
to carry	носить	нести	понести
to carry (veh.)	возить	везти	повезти
to go slowly	бродить	брести	побрести
to climb	лазать or лазить	лезть	полезть
to crawl	ползать	ползти	поползти
to carry with significant effort	таскать	тащить	потащить
to herd	гонять	гнать	погнать
to roll (trans.)	катать	катить	покатить
to roll (intrans.)	кататься	катиться	покатиться

I label these the verbs of locomotion because they drive us Americans crazy.

Okay, that's not the real reason. A retired professor of Russian, Sanford Couch, put together a set of textual materials back in the seventies in which he referred to these verbs as the “verbs of locomotion.” These are not the only verbs of motion in Russian, but they are the only ones that we sometimes teach as verb triplets instead of verb pairs. It is sensible to have a phrase that unambiguously identifies this specific set of verbs; I suggest Prof. Couch's phrase fills the bill admirably.

Rev. February 12, 2014