Идти
The next generic verb of motion is идти. Note especially its irregular past tense forms.
| to go | |
| Imperfective | |
| Infinitive | идти |
| Past | шёл шла шло шли |
| Present | иду идёшь идёт идём идёте идут |
| Future |
буду идти будешь идти будет идти будем идти будете идти будут идти |
| Imperative | иди(те) |
Идти is more specialized than ходить in that it always talks about motion in progress toward a particular place. Because of that “in progress” bit, we can often translate it as “heading to” or “on the way to”:
| — Куда ты идёшь? | “Where are you going? |
| — Иду в библиотеку. | “I'm going to the library.” |
| “I'm on my way to the library.” | |
| “I'm heading to the library.” |
Although adverbs of frequency and phrases of frequency (like часто and каждый день) usually trigger an indeterminate verb, if the situation describes something that happens regularly on the way to a place, then you use the determinate verb идти:
| Каждое утро, когда я шёл мимо газетного киоска, Нина Петровна здоровалась со мной. | Every morning, when I passed by the newspaper stand, Nina Petrovna said ‘hello’ to me. |
| Когда я иду в библиотеку, по пути я всегда покупаю мороженое у Лены. | Whenеver I go to the library, I always by ice cream from Lena on the way. |
| Когда ты будешь идти по улице Плеханова, ты увидишь справа электростанцию. | When you walk down Plekhanov street, you will spot a power plant on the right. |
One of the curious uses of determinate verbs is that they can be used to say how long it takes to get to a place. From the English-speaking point of view, that is rather odd. After all, getting to the place implies a completed action, so we should use a perfective verb, right? But from the Russian point of view in these sentences they are indicating how long the process takes, so the imperfective works:
| Я шёл до института двадцать минут. | It took me twenty minutes to get to the institute. |
| Как долго будем идти от дома до почты? | How long will it take us to get to the post office from home? |
| — Долго идти от школы до парка? — Нет, недолго, всего минут десять. |
“Does it take long to get from the school from the park?” “No, not too long, only about ten minutes.” |
1 comment
Не совсем правильно.
You can rarely hear the form such as “буду идти". Much more often we say “Пойду”
- Пойду
- Пойдёшь
- Пойдёт
- Пойдём
- Пойдёте
- Пойдём
The form “Буду идти” can be used in sentences like “Он будет идти по улице Колпакова, когда снайпер кинет в него кирпич". When the action is unavoidable. And even after that, using of such form is unnecessary.
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