Breakdown of Мы договорились о плане на завтра и начали работать.
Questions & Answers about Мы договорились о плане на завтра и начали работать.
Договорились comes from the verb догово́риться (perfective), which is a “-ся/-сь” verb. The -ся/-сь ending is historically reflexive, but here it mainly signals a verb meaning to come to an agreement / to reach an understanding (often with someone else).
- -сь is just a pronunciation/spelling variant of -ся used after vowels: договорили
- сь → договорились.
- You’ll see -сь after vowels (e.g., начина́л → начина́лся would be -ся because it ends in a consonant sound; догово́рили → догово́рились uses -сь).
Russian past tense verbs agree with the subject in gender and number (not person). With мы (we), you use plural past:
- договорились = past plural
- начали = past plural
If the subject were он, it would be договори́лся / нача́л; with она: договори́лась / начала́; with они: договори́лись / нача́ли.
Because the verb догово́риться commonly takes the pattern догово́риться о + Prepositional meaning “agree about/on something.”
- о чём? → о пла́не (Prepositional of план)
So the case choice is governed by the verb + preposition combination, not by the noun alone.
План is a masculine noun with a hard stem. In the prepositional singular, it typically ends in -е:
- план → о плане
Spelling note: it’s плане (with е), not планe with any special letter—just standard Cyrillic е.
Both are possible, but they feel slightly different:
- план на завтра = a plan for tomorrow (a “plan intended for that day,” like an agenda)
- план завтра is generally not used in this meaning.
- You can also say завтра мы… to mean “tomorrow (we) …” when завтра is an adverb modifying the whole action, not attached to план.
Here, на завтра is tightly linked to план.
Russian often uses нача́ть/начина́ть + infinitive to express “to begin doing something.”
- начали = “(they/we) began”
- работать = “to work” (infinitive)
So начали работать is a very standard structure for “started working.”
Начали is the past plural of нача́ть (perfective). Perfective нача́ть focuses on the start as a completed event (“they got started”).
If you used начина́ли (imperfective), it would more likely suggest repeated/attempted starting, background action, or a less “event-like” focus depending on context. In a simple sequence of events (agreed → started), нача́ли is the natural choice.
After нача́ть, Russian typically uses an imperfective infinitive because it names the activity in general:
- начали работать = began the process of working (working as an ongoing activity)
A perfective counterpart for работать isn’t used the same way in this construction because “to work” doesn’t have a single neat perfective form that means “do work once and complete it.” When Russian needs that idea, it often uses other verbs (e.g., сде́лать (работу) “do/complete a piece of work”) rather than a “perfective of работать.”
The given order is neutral and very natural. Some reordering is possible for emphasis:
- Мы договорились о плане на завтра и начали работать. (neutral sequence)
- О плане на завтра мы договорились и начали работать. (emphasizes “about the plan for tomorrow”)
- Мы начали работать, договорившись о плане на завтра. (recasts the first part as a participial phrase; more stylistic)
Case endings keep the roles clear, so Russian word order is relatively flexible, but different orders shift emphasis.
Not necessarily. Russian often omits it when it’s obvious from context. You can add it if needed:
- Мы договорились с коллегами о плане на завтра… = we agreed with colleagues about the plan for tomorrow
- Мы договорились между собой о плане… = we agreed among ourselves about the plan
Without с кем, the sentence still sounds complete.
Common stress patterns here:
- мы договори́лись (stress on -ри́-)
- о пла́не (stress on пла́-)
- на за́втра (stress on за́в-)
- и начали́ (stress on -ли́)
- работа́ть (stress on -а́ть)