Adverbs in the Russian language: how to form them and when to use them

«When I read the book, the light went out.».

That's how bilingual children write, and the sentence seems flawless to them. All the words are Russian, the prepositional phrase is constructed correctly, and the comma is in place. But in Russian, it sounds like the book was read by a light.

The subordinate clause is generally structured simply. You take a sentence with two verbs, «the boy closed the book and went to the window,» and you turn the second one, «after closing the book, the boy went to the window.» The difficulty isn't in constructing the form; the difficulty is that it isn't always possible to turn it around, and you need to understand that before the turn is written.

Start with two actions in one sentence

Find the main action and the secondary action in the sentence. The main action will remain a verb, and the secondary action will become an adverbial participle.

In «The Boy Closed the Book and Walked to the Window,» the main thing is that he walked towards the window, because there is a meaning behind it. The closing is in the background; that means that the turning away has to be done by closing.

The choice is not always obvious, and often both options are legal. «He walked home and hummed» turns into «he walked home, humming», but it is also possible to say «he was humming as he walked home». The meaning shifts to what remains a predicate.

Formally, a participle is a special form of a verb that indicates an additional action by the same agent or object as the predicate. It answers questions such as «what is being done» and “what is being done”. A person may not be acting, but “the snow melted, turning into water”; the mechanism is the same.

Remember two things about the future form: it doesn't change at all, not by gender, not by number, not by case endings. And it follows from it. adjectives the base verb.

In the notebooks, it looks like this: «Entering the room, he saw a cat.» The child hears «in the room» because the character is already there, and he uses the subjunctive mood according to the meaning of the place. But the subjunctive here does not indicate the meaning of the phrase; it indicates the verb «to enter,» which requires «into what,» not «where.» The same mechanism applies to the usual «went to the park,» only hidden within the sentence structure.

Check the performer of both actions

Ask yourself who is closing the book and who is approaching the window. In our phrase, it's just one boy, and you can turn around.

Now compare that to the classic Chekhov line: «As I approached the station, my hat fell off.» A person was approaching, and the hat fell off; by grammar it follows that she was actually approaching the station.

In a normal two-part sentence, the action of the participle refers to the same subject as the verb. It doesn’t match; the sentence is not put in the past tense. The sentence is left with a conjunction or a preposition, «When I was approaching the station, my hat fell off.».

Let’s return to the phrase about light. The child didn’t pick it up by chance. In English, reading the book, the light went out sounds almost normal to him, because in colloquial English such constructions go unnoticed, even though they are considered impeccable there as well. He transferred the working model from one language to another, and in Russian it broke down. Therefore, the problem here isn’t the form; it’s the habit of asking about the performer.

The weakening is one thing. In a impersonal construction with the initial form of the verb, a turn of phrase is possible if both actions involve one performer. «Reading a book requires making notes» sounds fine, even though there is no subject. The mere presence of the initial form of the phrase does not yet allow for a turn of phrase; the performer must be checked.

Look at the form of the verb

Take the verb that you are turning into a participle and determine its form. The participle form will always be the same, and the context will not change it. From «to read» you will only get «to read»; from “to read” you will only get “to read”.

The order of events in the phrase serves as a clue. Simultaneous action usually takes the imperfect form, ending before the main one is completed. But it is the initial verb that decides the outcome, so in a disputed case, look at it.

From here it becomes understandable why the frequent entry «while reading a book, he fell asleep».

«Reading seems to a child to be a perfectly legitimate word. He already knows »to read« and sees the familiar verb »to read« and completes the form according to the same pattern. The mistake is not accidental; the child applied the real model where it doesn't work, because in modern neutral speech such a form is not used for »to read«. The right word here is only »to read".

This issue is being addressed. Ask what verb the child used to form the word, and he or she will see for themselves that they took the word «read» and added the suffix «pročitati».

If the child's vision is still poor, the de-partitives will have to be postponed. The week spent on The perfect and imperfect forms, Then you save a month. And when you’re also floating with personal debts, you have to start from scratch. suspensions.

Make sure that such a form actually exists

The check is done before assembly; otherwise, you could painstakingly build a word that doesn’t exist in the language.

The neuter imperfect forms are not formed from write, wait, sing, drink, beat, have, and protect, as well as from the -n verbs like wet and go out of gas. There are some such forms, but they only exist as obsolete or colloquial forms. Check the verb in the dictionary for its status.

«The words »piša« and »žďa« appear regularly in the compositions, for the same reason as »čítat’. The children have learned the rule, applied it carefully, and got a word that does not exist in the language. No one gave them a list of prohibitions, and there is no way to check it out on the spot, because at home these forms simply do not sound.

If there are no forms, rephrase the sentence using a conjunction. «He was writing a letter; he thought» becomes «he was writing a letter and thinking.».

Assemble the form

The model is chosen based on the type you defined two steps earlier.

For the imperfect tense, place the verb in the «they» form, drop the ending and add the suffix -a or -я. They read gives the reading, they think gives the thinking, they scream gives the screaming. In the tense "dair", the -a is used because after the plosives it is written exactly that way, and the suffix itself is the same.

For return items, leave a note at the end. They smile when they give you a smile. Verbs of motion They gather together, go forward, give, and when they go, they carry what they give.

You learn the three forms already prepared; there’s no need to memorize them. When you give them, when you stand up, when you learn them. The result of giving them mechanically is nonsense, and even adults stumble over it.

For perfect manners, take the basic form and add -in. Reading gives you the meaning, saying gives you the meaning. With reciprocation, you put -ing, and returning gives you returning. Washing your face gives you washing your face. The present-day variant looks outdated.

Some verbs follow the second model, from the base of the simple future with the suffix -Я. To come means to arrive, to find means to find, to bring means to bring. Check the spelling; in the word «coming», one letter is a d, and "to come" is obsolete.

Put the commas

Separate the subject verb (the verb with the dependent words) anywhere in the sentence. «Closing the book, he went to the window.» «He went to the window, closing the book.» «After closing the book, he went to the window.» Separate the singular subject verb too, «Smiling, she walked out of the room.».

Do not use hyphens to separate continuous combinations like «worked to the letter» and «ran headfirst.» And do not use words with an adjective meaning a method of action or pose instead of a second action. Simply, slowly, sitting, standing, lying, joking, reluctantly. «He read lying down» is written without a hyphen.

To check, replace the word with an adverb like «quickly» or «quietly.» The meaning is not affected; a comma is most likely not necessary. This is actually a hint; it doesn't work as a complete rule because much depends on the meaning of the word in the specific phrase.

Read it out loud

This step completes the sequence, takes a second, and saves you from overdoing it. Read the resulting sentence out loud and decide if you would say it that way.

A child who has just learned a topic starts inserting adverbs everywhere. «Coming home, I ate» sounds more bookish in conversation; «came home and ate» sounds more natural. In spoken language, participles are used less often than in writing, and many thoughts in everyday life are easier to express with two verbs; however, «turning off the light» sounds perfectly normal.

Let's break down one sentence in its entirety.

Let’s take the child’s sentence from the essay. «I waited for the bus for a long time and got cold.».

The main action here has frozen; the wait is in the background. The performer is the same in both cases—it’s me. The form of «waiting» is imperfect; that means a form with -a or -я is needed. And at this point everything stops, because there is no neutral adverb after «waiting.» The sentence remains with the conjunction.

We replace the verb and go the whole way. «I waited for the bus and went home.» The main thing is that I went, the secondary thing is that I waited; the performer is the only one. The construction is perfect; the verb is reflexive, meaning it takes the -ing form. So it becomes «waiting for the bus, I went home.» The turn of phrase is at the beginning; we put a comma after it.

Practice right here

Below is an interactive exercise on three types of tasks. Form formation, choosing the correctly constructed sentence, and collapsing the auxiliary verb into a sentence. Immediate verification with explanation of why the answer is correct.

Why would this be necessary for a child who already speaks Russian?

The Russian-speaking schoolboy takes the participles from reading and lessons in the middle grades. The child is cut off from the school source abroad, and there are fewer Russian books around him. He may understand the phrase «smiling, he entered» for years and never build one himself, choosing the correct form and not putting a comma. We discussed, How the assimilation of Russian into children actually works, And here, too, the gap is particularly evident.

The learned structure provides the child with another way to connect actions. They are given a choice between a simple sentence, a construction with a conjunction and a subordinate clause, and they choose the structure that best suits the text. The value lies in the ability to choose the structure, and the mere presence of a structure in the text does not improve it.

How to practice participles at home and in class

Take a child's sentence from a composition, connected by a conjunction «and», and go through it in the same order. Find the main action, check the performer, determine the type, make sure the form exists, and put it together. In your own sentence, the error is more visible than in someone else's example.

The senior students are working on analyzing a literary passage where there are many adverbs. Turn them back into adverbs and listen to what happens to the rhythm.

We conduct online lessons with children from four to seventeen years old in small groups, You can start with two free lessons. First, the methodologist will determine the level and select a group, and then a regular lesson with the teacher will take place.

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