Russian verbs — the essential list.

How to read this list

Each table below has five columns:

• Imperfective (impf.) — the verb for ongoing, repeated, or unfinished actions. This is the default form you'll see in dictionaries.
• Perfective (pf.) — the verb for completed, one-time, or result-focused actions. Some verbs (like быть or жить) have no true perfective or use a different construction.
• English — the core meaning. Russian verbs often cover a wider or narrower range than the English translation suggests.
• Class — conjugation class I or II. Class I verbs take -у/-ешь/-ет/-ем/-ете/-ут endings in the present tense; Class II verbs take -у(-ю)/-ишь/-ит/-им/-ите/-ат(-ят). This tells you which set of endings to apply.
• я-form — the first-person singular present (imperfective) or future (perfective). This is the form where consonant mutations happen (e.g., писать → пишу, любить → люблю), so seeing it saves you from errors.

Verbs of motion show both unidirectional (one direction, right now) and multidirectional (habitual, round-trip) forms — a uniquely Russian distinction that has no equivalent in English.

Note: быть is unique — it has no present-tense conjugation in modern Russian. Russians simply omit it: Я студент (I am a student). But быть fully conjugates in past (был/была/было/были) and future (буду/будешь/будет...). The construction у меня есть (I have) uses the frozen present form есть, which is the same for all persons.

Verbs of motion are the most Russian thing about Russian. Идти means "to be going right now, in one direction" — you're walking to the store. Ходить means "to go regularly, or back and forth" — you go to the gym on Tuesdays. English uses "go" for both; Russian forces you to choose. Perfective forms are created with prefixes: пойти (to set off on foot), поехать (to set off by vehicle), прийти (to arrive on foot).

Watch for consonant mutations in the я-form: спать → сплю (т → л insertion), купить → куплю (п → пл), жить → живу (stem change). These mutations are consistent — once you learn the pattern for one verb, it applies to others with the same consonant.

Хотеть is famously irregular — it conjugates as Class I in singular (хочу, хочешь, хочет) but Class II in plural (хотим, хотите, хотят). And нравиться works backwards from English: "I like the book" is Мне нравится книга — literally "To me is pleasing the book." The thing liked is the subject; the person who likes goes into the dative.

The pair брать / взять is one of the most common in Russian and one of the most irregular. The two words look nothing alike — this is a suppletive pair, where the imperfective and perfective come from different roots entirely (like English "go / went"). You just have to memorize it. The good news: once you do, you have one of the 10 most frequent verb pairs in the language.

Verbs in action: aspect contrast

The real skill in Russian verbs isn't knowing the infinitive — it's choosing the right aspect. Here are five pairs showing how imperfective and perfective change the meaning.