Russian Verb Conjugation: A Beginner’s Guide (2026)

Written by Ari Helderman | Last updated: December 23, 2025 | min read

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If you’re learning Russian, it’s a good thing to know a thing or 2 about the Russian verb conjugations. You don’t need to know the verb conjugation system perfectly as a foreigner to get your point across. But it helps to make your speech more clear and eloquent.

Russian verb conjugation rules

Most Russian verbs fall into 2 categories:

First conjugation verbs: these end in at ать or ять
Second conjugation verbs: these end in ить or еть

If you want to have real conversations in Russian instead of just studying it, I created a structured 30‑lesson audio course called Russian Conversations Unlocked. I've designed it for adult learners who want to learn to actually communicate with native speakers. You can find more information here.

Russian conjugation chart for the present tense

Each Russian verb has 6 tenses. One for each pronoun.

Here are the verb conjugations for the ать and ять verbs (first conjugation verbs). They depend on the person and the number of people doing the verb. Here is how you conjugate Russian verbs.

To read – читать	Russian	English
Infinitive form	читать	to read
First person singular	я читаю	I read
Second person singular	ты читаешь	You read
Third person singular	он / она / оно читает	he / she / it reads
First person plural	мы читаем	we read
Second person plural	вы читаете	you read
Third person plural	они читают	they read

Here are the verb conjugation rules for a ить verb (second conjugation verbs):

Russian	English
спешить	to hurry
я спешу	I hurry
ты спешишь	you hurry
он / она / оно спешит	he / she / it hurries
мы спешим	we hurry
вы спешите	you hurry
они спешат	they hurry

Russian conjugation chart for future tense

In Russian, there are 2 different future tenses

a form of быть + infinitive form of an imperfective verb
conjugated perfective verb

Here are examples of how you conjugate verbs in the future with быть:

я буду читать эту книгу – I will be reading this book
я прочитаю эту книгу – I will finish reading this book

The first is an imperfective verb. And the second is a perfective verb.

The great thing about the perfective verbs, is that they conjugate in exactly the same ways as the imperfective verbs. You can just remove the ending ть and then add the correct conjugation.

It’s important to know that the perfective words cannot be used in the Russian present tense.

Here are the forms of быть

Russian	English
быть	to be
я буду	I will
ты будешь	you will
он / она / оно будет	he / she / it will
мы будем	we will
вы будете	you will
они будут	they will

Here are some common examples of perfective and imperfective pairs:

to look: смотреть – посмотреть
to see: видеть – увидеть
to talk: говорить – поговорить
to do: делать – сделать

Russian conjugation chart for past tense

The Russian past tense is one of the reasons why Russian grammar is not as hard as it looks like. All you need to do is remove the ending ть and replace it with an л + о/а/и.

This works the same for perfective and perfective verbs.

Here is an example of this for several different Russian verb conjugation endings for the past tense in the Russian language:

Russian	English
читать	to read
он читал	he read
она читала	she read
оно читало	it read
они читали	they read
быть	to be
он был	he was
она была	she was
оно было	it was
они были	they were
спешить	to hurry
он спешил	he hurried
она спешила	she hurried
оно спешило	it hurried
они спешили	they hurried

How to form the Russian imperative

You use the imperative form if you want to give commands. This can be used both for the perfective and impeorfective verbs.

In order to turn a verb into an imperative verb, you take the Russian present tense stem, and add й/йте, и/ите or -ь/-ьте.

If the stem ends in a vowel, add й/йте.

If the stem ends in a consonant, and the first person singular verb is stressed, you add и/ите.

If the stem ends in a consonant, but the first person singular ending is not stressed, you add-ь/-ьте.

Here you can see some examples:

Russian command	English command
читай	read (singular)
читайте	read (plural)
будь	be (singular)
будьте	be (plural)
спеши	hurry (singular)
спешите	hurry (plural)

How to form the Russian conditional

Even though the Russian conditional’s use can be difficult, it’s easy to form it.

All you do is add the conditional signal word бы to the past tense:

Russian	English
спешить	to hurry
он спешил бы	he would hurry
она спешила бы	she would hurry
оно спешило бы	it would hurry
они спешили бы	they would hurry

Best resources to learn Russian grammar

It’s one thing to see all these Russian verb conjugation tables. But learning them is a completely different thing.

Just looking at them over and over again will help you understand some of it. But you need a different approach if you want to say the Russian verb conjugation consistently correct while speaking.

One of the best ways to learn Russian grammar is to follow a course. Here are my recomendations:

Best course for basic Russian verb conjugation: Michel Thomas

Michel Thomas is an audio course that focuses on complete beginners. In total it consists of 3 levels of around 20 hours in total.

The great thing is that every lesson build on the next lesson. In each lesson, there is a teacher and 2 other students. You’re supposed to be the third student and join the lesson. This is great, as the other students make many common mistakes, that the teacher then corrects. You learn from this.

It’s originally a CD based course, so it’s abit different to find this. I recommend you google around to get the best price.

Best course for advanced Russian verb conjugation: Russianpod101

Russianpod101 is the best course for general verb conjugation in Russian. It also covers complete beginner, but Michel Thomas is just more smooth for the beginner lessons.

Russianpod101 works with audio podcasts. Each lesson is around 15 minutes:

A short dialogue in the Russian language
Slow repetition of the dialogue
Translation of each phrase
New vocabulary
Explanation of grammar
Cultural remarks
Repetition of dialogue

Especially the explanation of the Russian grammar is something that they do well. And since at the end of each lesson the dialogue is repeated, you can see if you now understand how it works.

It’s a paid course, but you can try a free 7-day trial with just your email address.

More conjugation for Russian verbs

If you want more examples of Russian verb conjugation, you can check below. On these pages, you can also find the perfective/imperfective verb pairs.

What should you do next?

Most learners don't struggle because Russian is "too hard."

They struggle because they don't train speaking directly.

You can study vocabulary
you can memorize Grammar
You can listen for hours

But if you don't practice building sentences in real time, you'll still struggle when someone speaks to you.

One of my students once told me:

“I have been studying Russian for a year. In my head I can prepare basic sentences, yet when it comes to actually speaking I ‘chock’.”

That's not a knowledge problem.

That’s a training problem.

Your weakest skill determins your conversational level.

4 learn russian skills

And for most learners, that weakest skill is speaking.

That's why I built Russian Conversations Unlocked - a structured 30-lesson audio course designed to train real-time speaking ability step by step.

If you want to have real conversations in Russian, start here:

Check out Conversations Unlocked.

Thank you

It’s been helpful, thanks

About the author

Ari Helderman

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Hey I'm Ari, a Dutch guy who struggled with languages in school. I failed formal English classes and dropped French and German at the earliest opportunity. Languages just weren’t for me.

But everything changed when I started dating a Russian girl who invited me to meet her non-English speaking parents in Moscow. I had just 3 months to learn Russian.

But traditional methods failed me. Apps, textbooks, courses - nothing worked. Then I realized I'd become fluent in English through movies, games, and real conversations, not studying.

I applied this insight to Russian, focusing on practical communication instead of grammar. The results were immediate. In Moscow, I had meaningful conversations with her family, and soon found myself speaking Russian without thinking about it.

As I shared my journey online, others asked for help. And I created my course Russian Conversations Unlocked. Now over 500 students have transformed their Russian using this same natural immersion approach.