There is only one past tense in Ukrainian. The formation of this tense is quite simple, although its logic differs from that of the Future and Present tenses (the Past tense is the only grammatical tense in which the verb specifies the gender of the person or object that did the action).
The Past thense in Ukrainian is formed by replacing the infinitive ending -ти with suffixes and endings according to the gender and number of the subject:
- Що він робив вчора? – What did he do yesterday?
- Ввечері ми дивилися футбол. – In the evening, we watched football.
- Поліно, що ти читала? – Я читала журнал. * – Polina, what were you reading? I was reading a magazine.
- Анна та Джон були в Україні два тижні тому. – Anna and John visited Ukraine two weeks ago.
* The pronouns я and ти can be expressed in both masculine and feminine verb forms depending on weather я or ти is a man or a womanBut there are also some verbs that are exceptions.
Exercises:
1. Put the verbs into the Past tense
- У суботу я (відпочивати).
- Вчора він (гуляти)
- Минулого року ми (вчитися).
- Вони (розмовляти) позавчора.
- Вона (працювати) вранці.
- Ти (писати) диктант.
- Що ви (робити) місяць тому?
- On Saturday I was resting.
- Yesterday he went for a walk.
- Last year we were studying.
- They talked the day before yesterday.
- She worked in the morning.
- You wrote a dictation.
- What were you doing a month ago?
This course course will help you to start learning Ukrainian in easy and convenient way. You will learn how to read in Ukrainian and understand spoken language, learn basic grammar, vocabulary and useful phrases.
All materials (vocabulary lists, grammar explanation, texts, dialogues, audios, tests and practice exercises with answers) are on our website, so you can access them whenever you want.