Category: Running motion
Побежать
February 10th, 2010 by DonПобежать is the perfective form of the verb бегать “to run.” It incorporates one of the four most irregular verb stems in the Russian language:
| to run | |
| Perfective | |
| Infinitive | побежать |
| Past | побежал побежала побежало побежали |
| Present | No such thing as perfective present in Russian. |
| Future | побегу побежишь побежит побежим побежите побегут |
| Imperative | побеги(те) |
Побежать literally means “to run”:
| Ваня побежал по дороге. | Ivan ran down the road. |
Although the verb does mean “to run,” it's actually used in conversation more often to mean “to take a quick trip” or “to be moving quickly” instead of literally running. The same is true for the English verb “to run” as well, of course.
| — Где мама? — Она побежала в магазин. |
“Where is Mom?” “She ran to the store.” |
On the colloquial level the verb can almost mean the equivalent of the English “I'm out of here/I'm gone”:
| — Серёжа, не уходи. Останься, пока не напишем доклад. — Нет, я побежал. Моя девушка ждёт меня. |
“Sergei, don't leave. Stay until we finish writing the report.” “No, I'm out of here. My girlfriend is waiting for me.” |
| Я не могу здесь остаться. Я побежал. | I can't stay here any more. I'm gone. |
Бежать
January 14th, 2010 by DonБежать is the determinate (unidirectional) form of the verb бегать “to run.” It is one of the four most irregular verb stems in the Russian language:
| to run | |
| Imperfective | |
| Infinitive | бежать |
| Past | бежал бежала бежало бежали |
| Present | бегу бежишь бежит бежим бежите бегут |
| Future |
буду бежать будешь бежать будет бежать будем бежать будете бежать будут бежать |
| Imperative | беги(те) |
Бежать is more specialized than бегать in that it usually talks about motion in progress at a particular time:
| — Сынок, почему ты бежишь? — Борька сказал, что изобьёт меня! — Подойди к папе. Я тебя защищу. |
“Son, why are you running away?” “Boris said he was going to beat me up.” “Come to Daddy. I'll protect you.” |
| Когда я увидел Таню, она бежала через двор. | When I spotted Tanya, she was running across the courtyard. |
Although the verb does mean “to run,” it's actually used in conversation more often to mean “to take a quick trip” or “to be moving quickly” instead of literally running. The same is true for the English verb “to run” as well, of course.
| — Где мама? — Она бежит в магазин. |
“Where is Mom?” “She is taking a quick trip to the store.” |
| Как быстро бежит время! | How quickly time flies! |
The verb is also used in the sense of “to precede prematurely”:
| Русская зима бежит впереди прогноза. | The Russian winter is running ahead of forecast. |
| Паника бежит впереди фактов. (source) | Panic is setting in before the facts. |
And of course the verb is also used in the sense of “to flee”. Although in English the thing you flee from can be a direct object (“We fled Cuba in 1965”) or the object of the preposition ‘from’ (“We fled from Cuba in 1965”), in Russian the thing you flee from cannot be a direct object; it must be the object of the prepositions из/с/от followed by the genitive case:
| Население бежит с Дальнего Востока. (source) | The population is fleeing from the Far East. |
| Капитал бежит из доллара в золото. (source) | Investors are abandoning dollars for gold. (Lit., Capital is running from the dollar to gold. |
| Жена Лужкова бежит с рынка недвижимости Москвы. (source) | Luzhkov's wife is abandoning Moscow's real estate market. |
| Олигарх мобильной телефонии бежит из России. (source) | Mobile phone oligarch flees Russia. (newspaper headline) |
Бегать
January 12th, 2010 by DonБегать is the most generic word in Russian that means “to run.”
| to run | |
| Imperfective | |
| Infinitive | бегать |
| Past | бегал бегала бегало бегали |
| Present | бегаю бегаешь бегает бегаем бегаете бегают |
| Future |
буду бегать будешь бегать будет бегать будем бегать будете бегать будут бегать |
| Imperative | бегай(те) |
Running… nowadays in the lazy West we often run in order to lose weight. That actually makes sense:
| Бегай каждый день, не ешь хлебных изделий, и обязательно похудеешь. | Go running every day. Don't eat bread or pastry, and you'll lose weight for sure. |
| В 1996-ом я каждое утро бегал, и я отлично чувствовал себя. | In 1996 I ran every morning, and I felt great. |
| Если ты будешь каждое утро бегать, я с удовольствием буду бегать с тобою. | If you are going to run every morning, I'll be happy to join you. |
It's not usual for a person to regularly run from one place to another, but in such atypical circumstances it is possible to conceive of someone doing such a thing:
| Так как Федя готовился к Олимпиаде, он каждый день бегал на работу. | Since Fyodor was getting ready for the Olympics, everyday he ran to work [and back]. |
The verb is also used to describe the motion of someone running around a place with no set goal or direction, e.g. walking around a neighborhood for pleasure:
| Каждый день я бегаю по району не потому, что так рекомендуют врачи, а потому, что таким образом мне становится лучше на душе. | I go running around the neighborhood every morning not because doctors tell us to, but because I feel better that way. |
Last but not least, the verb is used to indicate a single round-trip in the past. It's not typical in this usage, but still grammatically possible:
| Папа бегал в аптеку. | Dad ran to the pharmacy (and then came back). |
XML Feeds