Questions & Answers about Я печатаю документ в офисе.
What is the aspect and tense of печатaю, and why does Russian use that form here?
печатaю is the first-person singular, present tense form of the imperfective verb печатать. Russian verbs have two aspects:
- Imperfective (e.g. печатать) describes ongoing, habitual or repeated actions.
- Perfective (e.g. распечатать, напечатать) describes a completed action or the action viewed as a whole.
Since you’re talking about what you are doing right now (“I am typing/printing the document”), you use the imperfective present tense печатaю.
What’s the difference between печатать, распечатать, and напечатать?
- печатать (imperfective) – “to type” or “to print” (ongoing or habitual).
- распечатать (perfective) – “to print out” something (emphasis on getting a hard copy).
- напечатать (perfective) – “to have typed/printed” something to completion (emphasis on the finished result).
Example:
Я распечатаю документ – “I will print out the document” (from a printer).
Я напечатаю документ – “I will type/print the document” (and finish it).
Why does документ stay in its base form? Shouldn’t the ending change in the accusative case?
Because документ is a masculine, inanimate noun. For masculine inanimate nouns, the accusative case form is identical to the nominative case form. So:
nominative: документ
accusative: документ