The Off Topic Topic

[Liep]

Why?

There's two choices for each word, and I always seem to get them wrong.

Клал or Положил??!

[Liep]

I've decided I don't care much for the past tense in Russian.

It's the simplest part of verb conjugation.  It'd be great if everything happened in the past tense in Russian.

The conjugating, yes. But my problem is deciding between imperfective or perfective. As in, how to translate "I was sitting at home and watching television, when the phone suddenly rang. It was my mother who called."

[Tonitrus]

Oh man.  That's not past tense's fault...that's the fault of the weird Russian idea of whether a particular object "stands" on something, or "lies" on something.

Sort of like what kind of location uses "на" and which uses "в", when you're going to/into it.

[Liep]

Yes, that's annoying too.

[Duque de Bragança]

I've decided I don't care much for the past tense in Russian.

It's the simplest part of verb conjugation.  It'd be great if everything happened in the past tense in Russian.

The conjugating, yes. But my problem is deciding between imperfective or perfective. As in, how to translate "I was sitting at home and watching television, when the phone suddenly rang. It was my mother who called."

Avoid Romance languages too then cf. imparfait vs passé simple/passé composé. 

[katmai]

Jesus Liep, less time on ruskie, more time making babies to satisfy your mother.

[Tonitrus]

I've decided I don't care much for the past tense in Russian.

It's the simplest part of verb conjugation.  It'd be great if everything happened in the past tense in Russian.

The conjugating, yes. But my problem is deciding between imperfective or perfective. As in, how to translate "I was sitting at home and watching television, when the phone suddenly rang. It was my mother who called."

Sitting and watching would be imperfective, because they are indefinite processes(even though they happened in the past).  The ringing phone would be perfective (it happened once and was done), as would be mom calling.

It could be worse...the sitting and watching could also be formed as past active participles. 

[Liep]

Jesus Liep, less time on ruskie, more time making babies to satisfy your mother.

Must those two be mutually exclusive?

[katmai]

So you are learning Russian to pick up hot girls, got it!

[Tonitrus]

So you are learning Russian to pick up hot girls, got it!

I should be trying that...

[Liep]

Sitting and watching would be imperfective, because they are indefinite processes(even though they happened in the past).  The ringing phone would be perfective (it happened once and was done), as would be mom calling.

It could be worse...the sitting and watching could also be formed as past active participles. 

I'll just avoid the participles for now. So "Однажды, когда я сидел дома и смотрел телевизор, телефон вдруг позвонил. Это выла моя старая мама, которая позвонила."?

[katmai]

So you are learning Russian to pick up hot girls, got it!

I should be trying that...

you could have been doing that here, since we can see Russia and all that..

[Liep]

So you are learning Russian to pick up hot girls, got it!

I should be trying that...

From a test pool of one I can say that 80% of Ruskie classes at Uni are chicks.

[Josquius]

Grammar language makes me cry.

[Tonitrus]

Sitting and watching would be imperfective, because they are indefinite processes(even though they happened in the past).  The ringing phone would be perfective (it happened once and was done), as would be mom calling.

It could be worse...the sitting and watching could also be formed as past active participles. 

I'll just avoid the participles for now. So "Однажды, когда я сидел дома и смотрел телевизор, телефон вдруг позвонил. Это была моя старая мама, которая позвонила."?

I am pretty sure "позвонить" is mostly used if you are "calling" someone.  A "ringing" phone probably uses a different prefix.  And google tells me it's зазвонить... 

Picking the right prefixes are another mess unto themselves.