Learn Hardcore Russian: Если я говорю «читать», это процесс, а «почитать» значит «почитать немного». - If I say “читать,” it is a process, while “почитать” means “to read a little.”

What are you doing? — Я читаю. = I am reading. (process)
What do you usually do in the evening? — Я читаю. = I (usually) read. (habitual process)

So “process” means:

the action is seen from the inside, as something happening or regularly happening,
there is no emphasis on finishing the action or on the result.

What is the grammatical difference between читать and почитать?

The main grammatical difference is aspect:

читать – imperfective (process, ongoing, habitual)
почитать – perfective (bounded, completed event)

Both have the basic meaning “to read”, but:

читать: “to be reading / to read (in general)”
почитать: “to read for a while / to read a bit (and be done with it)”

Because почитать is perfective:

It is used for single, completed events:
- Я почитаю час и лягу спать. – I’ll read for an hour and then go to sleep.
It doesn’t normally form a present-tense meaning of “I am reading now”; its “present” forms are future:
- Я почитаю = I will read (for a bit).

Does почитать always mean “to read a little bit”?

Not strictly “a little bit” in the sense of a tiny amount. It more often means:

“to read for some (limited) time”
“to read for a while”

So the nuance is:

The action is delimited (bounded in time), not endless.
The length can be short, but doesn’t have to be very short.

Examples:

Я хочу просто почитать перед сном.
I just want to read for a while before sleeping.
(Could be 10 minutes, could be an hour.)

The explanation “почитать немного” is a learner-friendly simplification: it captures the idea that the reading is not open‑ended, but it’s not literally “only a tiny bit” in every context.

Is the prefix по- always used to mean “a little / for a while” like in почитать?

No. по- has several different functions in Russian verbs. One of them is the delimitative meaning (“for a while”), as in:

поговорить – to talk for a while
посидеть – to sit for a while
почитать – to read for a while

But по- can also have other meanings, for example:

помыть – to wash (thoroughly / once, perfective)
поставить – to put, to place
пойти – to set off walking, to go

So you cannot automatically translate по- as “a little” or “for a while”. You have to learn the meaning for each verb or group of verbs. In почитать (from читать) it is indeed the “for a while” / “delimited” meaning.

If почитать is perfective, why does it sound incomplete, like “just for a bit”?

Perfective in Russian does not always mean “do something completely to the very end”. It means the action is seen as a single, bounded whole.

There are different ways of being “bounded”:

By result:
прочитать книгу – to read the book (to the end, result achieved).
By time span:
почитать – to read for a certain (limited) period; we don’t care about finishing the whole book, only that this “reading session” is a completed event.

So почитать is perfective because:

the reading is seen as one complete episode in time,
but the focus is on the episode’s limited duration, not on finishing the entire text.

Can I say я люблю почитать or must I always use читать after verbs like “to like”?

You can say both, but the nuance changes:

Я люблю читать.
I like reading (in general, as an activity).
→ A general, abstract preference. Imperfective fits well.
Я люблю почитать перед сном.
I like to read for a while before bed.
→ You like this specific type of reading session: a limited period of reading, then you stop.

So:

After verbs like любить, нравиться, хотеть, ненавидеть, начинать etc., you often see имperfective (читать), but perfective infinitives like почитать are also possible when you want to highlight the bounded event (a “session” rather than the activity in general).

When would a native speaker choose читать instead of почитать, and vice versa?

Very roughly:

Use читать (imperfective) when:

you’re talking about what you’re doing right now as a process:
Я читаю книгу. – I’m reading a book.
you describe habits:
Я часто читаю по вечерам. – I often read in the evenings.
you focus on the activity itself, not on a specific finished episode.

Use почитать (perfective, delimitative) when:

you plan or describe a reading session of limited duration:
Я хочу немного почитать. – I want to read for a while.
Я почитал и лёг спать. – I read for a while and went to bed.
you’re contrasting that reading session with other actions (before/after something).

So the choice depends on whether you see the reading as:

an ongoing activity / general habit → читать
a single, bounded event / “for a while” session → почитать

The sentence says почитать means почитать немного. Why repeat the same verb in the explanation?

In Russian explanations like this, the speaker is not changing the word, they are changing the idea around it:

First почитать = just the bare verb, as a word you’re talking about.
Second почитать немного = “to read a bit”, i.e., to give a simple paraphrase: the same verb plus an adverb (немного) that points out the “limited” meaning.

So the structure is:

“If I say читать, it’s a process,
but почитать means: (to) почитать немного.”

It’s like in English saying:

“To read is a process, but to read a bit means to read for a short time.”

The Russian speaker is giving a minimal, intuitive gloss, not a full dictionary definition.

Why are читать and почитать in the infinitive form here instead of some conjugated form?

Infinitives in this sentence are used as names of actions / verbs themselves:

Если я говорю «читать»…
“If I say читать…” → you’re talking about the word or verb form, not about someone actually doing it.

In English you’d do the same:

“If I say to read, it’s a process…”

So:

Infinitive = the dictionary form, neutral, good for talking about the verb.
Conjugated forms like читаю, почитаю would talk about an actual subject doing the action, which is not the point of this meta-language explanation.

Why is it если я говорю «читать» and not если я скажу «читать»?

The difference is aspect and meaning of говорить / сказать:

говорить – imperfective: to speak, to say (as a process / generally, repeatedly)
сказать – perfective: to say (one specific completed act of saying)

In если я говорю «читать»…, the speaker is talking about what happens whenever they use the word читать, in a general, explanatory way. It’s like:

“If (whenever) I say читать, it’s a process…”

Using если я скажу would usually refer to one specific future moment:

“If I (at some point) say читать, then X will happen…”
That is not the intended meaning here.

So говорю matches the general, explanatory tone of the sentence.