Remember that there are three types of verbs based on their last vowel in the dictionary form: a-verbs, e-verbs, and и-verbs, i.e. those ending in a, e, and и, respectively, in the form found in the dictionary. Remember also that based on their aspect, there are two types of verbs: imperfective and perfective. In forming the past tenses, three questions need to be kept in mind:
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- what is the aspect of the verb,
- whether the last vowel of the dictionary form changes (and if so, to what), and
- what the endings are.
The imperfect (минато определено несвршено време - МОН) is the first past tense you will learn about. It is made from imperfective verbs (although the endings below can also be added to perfective verbs in certain other contexts). For imperfective verbs that end in и in the dictionary, the и is replaced with е. Then, to make the imperfective, the following endings are added
- јас -в
- ти, тој, таа, тоа -ше
- ние -вме
- вие -вте
- тие -а
where the - represents the dictionary form with the changed final vowel.
In this tutorial, you also learn two ways to refer to time periods in the past, such as last week or last Saturday:
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- using the adjective минат, мината, минато, минати "last (but not final)", as in: минатиот викенд "last weekend", минатата недела "last week"
- using the preposition во "in" followed by a day of the week with a definite ending, as in: во саботата "on the Saturday, meaning last Saturday", во вторникот "on the Tuesday, meaning last Tuesday"