Я не успел догнать автобус, поэтому коллега подвезла меня до вокзала.

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Breakdown of Я не успел догнать автобус, поэтому коллега подвезла меня до вокзала.

• не: not
• меня: me
• вокзал: the station

Questions & Answers about Я не успел догнать автобус, поэтому коллега подвезла меня до вокзала.

What does Я не успел догнать автобус mean exactly?

It means I didn’t manage to catch up with the bus in time.

A few shades of meaning are packed into this:

• не успел = didn’t have time / didn’t manage in time
• догнать автобус = to catch up with the bus

So this is not just a neutral I didn’t take the bus. It suggests the bus was already leaving or moving, and the speaker failed to reach it in time.

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Why does Russian use догнать here? Why not just a verb meaning to catch?

Догнать literally means to catch up with.

With transport, Russian often uses verbs like this when the idea is that you were trying to reach it before it got away. So:

• догнать автобус = catch up with the bus
• in natural English, this often becomes simply catch the bus

But the Russian wording is a bit more vivid: it suggests the bus was already going, and the speaker tried to reach it.

If you said something like успеть на автобус, that would mean more to be in time for the bus.
догнать автобус is more physical: running after it, trying to reach it.

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Why is the infinitive догнать perfective?