Participles function as verbal adjectives and are commonly used in both spoken and written Russian. You can use participles to describe a quality of a subject that depends on a verbal action. As verbal adjectives, participles have characteristics of both verbs (tense, aspect, voice) and adjectives (gender, number, case).
In this lesson, we’ll look at how to form and use active participles in the present and past tense. We'll cover passive participles in the next lesson about the passive voice.
For more information go here for the participles page in our Russian grammar resources.
The present active participle is used to describe an action that the subject is performing currently or repeatedly.
The meaning of the present active partciple in English can often be translated as "-ing" or "who is doing something."
Remember, as there is no present tense in the perfective aspect, all present active participles are built from verbs in the imperfective aspect.
To form present active participles, take the third person plural form of the present tense verb, drop the -т, and add the endings -щий (-щая, -щее, -щие). For example:
Case | Masc | Fem | Neut | Plur |
---|---|---|---|---|
Nom | играющий | играющая | играющее | играющие |
Acc | играющий/его | играющую | играющее | играющие |
Gen | играющего | играющей | играющего | играющих |
Dat | играющему | играющей | играющему | играющим |
Inst | играющим | играющей | играющим | играющими |
Prep | играющем | играющей | играющем | играющих |
The past active participle is used to describe an action that the subject had performed in the past.
The meaning of the past active participle in English can often be translated as "having done something" or "who had done something."
To form the past active participle, add the ending -вший (-вшая, -вшее, -вшие) to the past tense verb stem.
Remember, you can use either the imperfective or perfective aspect with the past active participle. Generally, the past active participle is more common with perfective verbs, but both come up.
The “в” of the suffix is dropped to be just -ший:
Case | Masc | Fem | Neut | Plur |
---|---|---|---|---|
Nom | игравший | игравшая | игравшее | игравшие |
Acc | игравший/его | игравшую | игравшее | игравшие |
Gen | игравшего | игравшей | игравшего | игравших |
Dat | игравшему | игравшей | игравшему | игравшим |
Inst | игравшим | игравшей | игравшим | игравшими |
Prep | игравшем | игравшей | игравшем | игравших |