In Russian, most verbs exist in pairs representing two different viewpoints, known as aspects. The imperfective aspect focuses on an action as an ongoing process, a duration, or a regular habit. The perfective aspect focuses on a single completed event, a finished result, or reaching a boundary. In this deck, you will learn how to recognise and use this core distinction in past tense speech.

When you want to ask what someone was doing, focusing on the activity itself rather than a completed result, you use the imperfective past of the verb 'делать', which is 'делал' for a male addressee and 'делала' for a female addressee. The question 'Что ты делал вчера вечером?' means 'What were you doing yesterday evening?'.

When you want to ask what someone achieved, completed, or got done, you switch to the perfective verb 'сделать'. For a male addressee, this is 'сделал', for a female addressee, 'сделала', and for a group or polite address, 'сделали'. The question 'Что ты сделал сегодня?' means 'What did you do today?', asking specifically about your completed results.