Participles are verbal adjectives. As such, they possess characteristics of both verbs (tense, aspect, voice) and adjectives (gender, number, case). You use participles to describe a quality or feature of a subject that depends on a verbal action.
We explain how to use, form, and decline participles in Russian, including: present active, past active, present passive, and past passive participles.
Present active participles are only derived from imperfective verbs, as such actions are either currently taking place or take place repeatedly. This participle’s meaning is that of an action the subject is performing. In action:
Forming present active participles is pretty simple. Just take the third person plural form of the present tense verb, drop the -т, and add the ending -щий (-щая, -щее, -щие). For example:
| Case | встречать | встречаться |
|---|---|---|
| Nom | встречающий | встречающийся |
| Acc | встречающий/щего | встречающийся/егося |
| Gen | встречающего | встречающегося |
| Dat | встречающему | встречающемуся |
| Inst | встречающим | встречающимся |
| Prep | встречающем | встречающемся |
Please note how reflexive present active participles always end in -ся, no matter the case.
The past active participle’s meaning is that of an action the subject had performed. In action:
To form the past active participle, add the ending -вший (-вшая, -вшее, -вшие) to the past tense verb stem. This participle is more common with perfective verbs, but also works with the imperfective aspect. For example:
The “в” of the suffix is dropped to be just -ший:
| Case | встречать | встречаться |
|---|---|---|
| Nom | встречавший | встречавшийся |
| Acc | встречавший/шего | встречавшийся/шегося |
| Gen | встречавшего | встречавшегося |
| Dat | встречавшему | встречавшемуся |
| Inst | встречавшим | встречавшимся |
| Prep | встречавшем | встречавшимся |
Please note how reflexive past active participles end in -ся, no matter the case.
Present passive participles are only derived from imperfective verbs, as such actions are either currently taking place or take place repeatedly. This participle’s meaning is that of an action being performed on a subject. The present passive particle replaces the active “который” (which, that) and can also have the English meaning of adjectives that end in -able. For example:
To form the present passive participle, add the usual -ый, -ая, -ое endings to the 1st person plural (мы) stem of the present tense verb. For example:
Verbs ending in -давать, -знавать, -ставать retain the suffix -ва that they lose in the present tense:
Four verbs have the suffix -ом:
Passive participles typically decline like normal long form adjectives. They also have short forms which have the same endings that do not decline by case, just like short form adjectives.
| Masc | Fem | Neut | Plur | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| любить | любим | любима | любимо | любимы |
Past passive participles are derived almost always from perfective verbs. They are used all the time in Russian and are often viewed as adjectives. Just like adjectives, they have both a long and a short form. The past passive participle replaces the active “который” (which, that) and can also have the English meaning of adjectives that end in -ed. For example:
Past passive participles are derived almost always from perfective verbs. They are formed from the past tense.
Drop the -л and add the ending -нный (-нная, -нное,-нные):
Drop the -ил and add the ending -енный (-енная, -енное, -енные):
Add the ending -ённый (-енный) to the past tense:
Drop the -л and adding ending -тый (-тая, -тое, -тые):
Verbs where the future perfective stem ends in -д or -т:
| Masc | Fem | Neut | Plur | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| прочитать | прочитан | прочитана | прочитано | прочитаны |
| написать | написан | написана | написано | написаны |
| вымыть | вымыт | вымыта | вымыто | вымыты |
| украсть | украден | украдена | украдено | украдены |
Please note, as in the украсть example above, past passive participles that end in -нный in the long form only retain one -н in the short form.
