Word
Он совершил серьёзную ошибку.
Meaning
He made a serious mistake.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Он совершил серьёзную ошибку.
он
he
ошибка
the mistake
серьёзный
serious
совершить
to commit; carry out (perfective)
Questions & Answers about Он совершил серьёзную ошибку.
Why is it совершил, not совершает or сделал?
Совершил is the past tense of совершить, so the sentence is talking about something that already happened.
Why not совершает?
- совершает = is committing / commits
- That would make the sentence present tense: He is committing a serious mistake or He commits a serious mistake
Why not сделал?
- сделать means to do / make, and in some contexts it can work with ошибка, especially in the phrase сделать ошибку, but совершить ошибку is a very common and natural collocation in Russian, especially in slightly more formal or standard language.
- So совершил ошибку sounds like committed/made a mistake, with совершить being the usual verb here.
What does совершить mean here?
Here совершить means to commit or to carry out.
It is often used with nouns that describe an action or act, for example:
- совершить ошибку — to make/commit a mistake
- совершить преступление — to commit a crime
- совершить поездку — to make/take a trip
So in this sentence, it does not mean something like to perfect or to complete oneself. It simply forms a natural expression with ошибка.
Why is ошибка changed to ошибку?