Past-Tense Forms: A Reference Table

The Russian past tense is, mechanically, one of the simplest things in the language — and this page is its complete reference card. There are only four endings (-л, -ла, -ло, -ли), they are built from the infinitive stem rather than the present, and they agree by gender and number, never by person. Two pockets of irregularity account for almost everything that goes wrong: a set of consonant-stem verbs whose masculine drops the -л (нёс, мог, шёл), and a feminine end-stress class that jumps the accent onto the ending (была́, взяла́, поняла́). Both are tabulated below. For the step-by-step formation, see past tense: formation; for the agreement rules, gender and number agreement.

The regular pattern

Drop the infinitive -ть to get the past stem, then add the ending that matches the subject's gender (if singular) or number (if plural). Person is irrelevant: the same form serves я, ты, он as long as the subject is masculine.

Every verb whose infinitive ends in a vowel + -ть follows this exactly:

Consonant-stem verbs: the masculine -л disappears

A group of verbs has a past stem ending in a consonant. Russian cannot tack a bare -л onto a consonant in the masculine, so the masculine form has no -л at all — it ends in the bare consonant. The feminine, neuter and plural keep their -ла / -ло / -ли, because there a vowel follows. The result: the masculine looks oddly bare beside the other three.

Two things to register from this table. Verbs in -чь (мочь, бере́чь, печь, течь) all belong here, and the stem consonant resurfaces: мочь → мог / могла́, бере́чь → берёг / берегла́. And идти́ is the great irregular — its past comes from an entirely different root (шёл / шла / шло / шли), so never *идёл.

The -ну- verbs: keep it or drop it

Verbs in -нуть split into two groups in the past. Most action -нуть verbs keep the -ну- (semelfactives like кри́кнуть → кри́кнул). But a set of "achieved-state" verbs drops the -ну- — and these often also lose the masculine -л, landing on the bare consonant.

Reflexive verbs: add -ся / -сь

Reflexive verbs (those in -ся — see reflexive -ся verbs) form the past normally, then attach the particle, whose shape depends on the preceding sound:

• -ся after a consonant — so after the masculine -л (and after the bare-consonant masculines);
• -сь after a vowel — so after -ла / -ло / -ли.

The feminine end-stress class

Here is the trap that even good learners stumble over. In most verbs the stress stays in the same place across all four past forms. But a small, high-frequency group throws the stress onto the feminine ending -а́ only — the masculine, neuter and plural keep stem (or prefix) stress, and the feminine alone jumps to the end. You simply have to know these by heart.

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• Build the past from the infinitive stem: drop -ть, add -л (masc.), -ла (fem.), -ло (neut.), -ли (plural). It agrees by gender/number, never person: чита́л / чита́ла / чита́ло / чита́ли.
• Consonant-stem verbs lose the masculine -л: нёс/несла́, вёз/везла́, мог/могла́, берёг/берегла́; идти́ is suppletive — шёл / шла / шло / шли.
• -ну- verbs split: action verbs keep it (кри́кнул), achieved-state verbs drop it and often the -л too (привы́к, исче́з, замёрз).
• Reflexives add -ся after a consonant (учи́лся) and -сь after a vowel (учи́лась, учи́лись).
• The feminine end-stress class jumps the accent to -а́ in the feminine only: была́, взяла́, дала́, жила́, поняла́, начала́ — memorise these; быть additionally has не́ был / не́ было / не́ были but не была́.