Category: "Running motion"
Побежать
Побежать 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
Бежать 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
Бегать 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). |