Chinese (Mandarin)

Spanish

English

Hindi

Arabic (Modern Standard)

Portuguese

Bengali

Russian

Japanese

Punjabi

German

Javanese

Malay

Telugu

Vietnamese

Korean

French

Marathi

Tamil

Urdu

Turkish

Italian

Chinese, Yue / Cantonese

Thai

Gujarati

Chinese, Jin

Chinese, Min Nan

Dari

Farsi

Polish

Pashto

Kannada

Chinese, Xiang

Malayalam

Sundanese

Hausa

Odia

Burmese

Chinese, Hakka

Ukrainian

Bihari, Bhojpuri

Tagalog

Yoruba

Bihari, Maithili

Uzbek

Sindhi

Amharic

Fula

Romanian

Oromo

Igbo

Azerbaijani

Chinese, Gan

Dutch

Kurdish, Central

Kurdish, Northern

Kurdish, Southern

Malagasy

Lahnda, Saraiki

Nepali

Sinhalese

Chittagonian

Zhuang

Khmer

Turkmen

Assamese

Madurese

Somali

Marwari

Bihari, Magahi

Haryanvi

Hungarian

Chhattisgarhi

Greek

Chewa

Dakhini

Akan, Twi

Akan, Fante

Kazakh

Chinese, Min Bei

Sylheti

Zulu

Czech

Kinyarwanda

Marwari, Dhundhari

Haitian Creole

Chinese, Min Dong

Ilocano

Quechua

Kirundi

Swedish

Hmong

Shona

Uyghur

Hiligaynon

Mossi

Xhosa

Belarusian

Balochi

### Active Past Participles

In English, we describe a noun that has completed an action using relative clauses (e.g., "the passenger *who arrived*", "the *escaped* criminal", "the *missing* money"). In Russian, we can express this concisely using **active past participles**.

Like present participles, they act exactly like adjectives and must agree with the noun they modify in gender, number, and case. Most active past participles are formed from perfective verbs, since they focus on completed actions.

### Formation: -вш- and -ш-

To create an active past participle, look at the masculine past tense form of the verb.

**1. Vowel stems (-вш-)**
If the masculine past tense ends in **-л** (which means the stem ends in a vowel), drop the **-л** and add the suffix **-вший** (masculine), **-вшая** (feminine), **-вшее** (neuter), or **-вшие** (plural).
- опоздать → опоздал → **опоздавший** (who was late)
- сбежать → сбежал → **сбежавший** (who escaped)

{{item:915984}}

**2. Consonant stems (-ш-)**
If the masculine past tense ends in a consonant (like **погиб** or **умер**), simply add the suffix **-ший**, **-шая**, **-шее**, or **-шие**.
- погибнуть → погиб → **погибший** (who perished)
- умереть → умер → **умерший** (who died)

Verbs of motion ending in **-йти** (like прийти, уйти) also use the **-ш-** suffix, but their stems change slightly (e.g., **пришедший**).

{{item:915985}}

{{item:916003}}

### Declension: Changing by Case

Because they function as adjectives, active past participles decline to match the case of the noun they describe. They follow standard adjective declension rules for stems ending in a "hushing" consonant like **-ш**.

{{item:915989}}

In the example above, **преступника** is an animate noun in the accusative case, so the participle **сбежавшего** takes the matching animate accusative ending.

{{item:915993}}

### Reflexive Participles

If the original verb is reflexive (ending in **-ся** or **-сь**), the participle will also be reflexive. To form it, decline the participle as usual, and then attach **-ся** to the very end. Note that participles *always* use **-ся**, even if the vowel before it would normally require **-сь**.
- заблудиться → заблудил + вший + ся → **заблудившийся** (who got lost)

{{item:915995}}

### Adding Context (Participle Clauses)

Just like in the present tense, past participles can take their own modifying words (like adverbs or objects) to form a "participle clause." Remember your comma rules: if the whole phrase comes *after* the noun it describes, it must be separated by commas. If it comes *before* the noun, no commas are needed.

{{item:916001}}

Here, the adverb **вчера** modifies the participle, and because the entire phrase **Прибывший вчера** comes directly before the noun **полицейский**, no commas are used.

Active past participles (-вш-, -ш-)

adjective

adverb

conjunction

determiner

interjection

noun

numeral

particle

predicative

preposition

pronoun

sentence

verb

Presentative (это)

Noun gender

Soft-sign nouns (-ь)

Subject pronouns (я, ты, он...)

Yes/no questions (да / нет)

Basic interrogatives (кто / что)

Basic negation (не)

Coordinating conjunctions (и / а)

Possessive pronouns (мой, твой, наш, ваш)

Demonstrative pronouns (этот, эта, это)

Adjective agreement

Which and whose (какой, чей)

First conjugation verbs, singular (-ать)

First conjugation verbs, plural (-ать)

Second conjugation verbs (-ить)

Irregular present tense verbs

Adverbs of manner (как, очень)

Locations in prepositional case (в / на)

Prepositional case modifiers (-ом, -ой)

Topics of speech (о, об)

Direct objects (-у, -ю)

Direct object pronouns (меня, тебя)

Verbs of motion (идти, ехать)

Destination (куда, в, на)

Plural nouns (-ы, -и, -а, -я)

Irregular plural nouns (друзья, дети)

Plural adjectives and pronouns (-ые, -ие)

Numbers 1 to 10 (один, два, три)

Possession with pronouns (у меня есть)

Possession with nouns (-а, -я, -ы, -и)

Genitive of negation (нет)

Numbers 2, 3, and 4

Quantities with mass nouns (сколько, много, мало)

Animate direct objects

The past tense of to be (был, была, было, были)

Regular past tense verbs

Time sequence expressions (вчера, завтра, раньше, потом)

Verb aspect in the past tense

Dative personal pronouns (мне, тебе, ему)

Expressing likes (нравится, нравятся)

Absence (нет)

Expressing age (год, года, лет)

Indirect objects (-у, -ю, -е)

Modal verbs (хотеть, мочь)

Reason and contrast (поэтому, но)

Double negation (ничего, никогда)

Reflexive verbs (-ся, -сь)

Polite requests and instructions (-ите, -йте)

Days of the week (в + Accusative)

Compound future tense (буду...)

Simple future tense

Accompaniment (с)

Multidirectional verbs of motion (ходить, ездить)

Greetings and goodbyes (здравствуйте, привет)

Thank you and sorry (спасибо, извините)

Countries and languages (русский, английский)

Meeting people (меня зовут, как дела)

Public transport (трамвай, остановка)

Left, right and the compass (слева, справа)

Places in the city (цирк, зоопарк)

Fruit and vegetables (помидор, огурец)

Post and travel (открытка, чемодан)

Family and relatives (внук, родственник)

Jobs and professions (инженер, продавец)

Sport and games (футбол, теннис)

Describing people (умный, сильный)

Health and the body (болен, здоровье)

The months of the year (январь, февраль)

Accusative feminine and inanimate adjectives (-ую, -юю)

Accusative animate masculine adjectives (-ого, -его)

Short-form adjectives (готов, занят)

Personal obligation (должен, должна)

Professions in the instrumental case

Genitive singular adjectives and possessives

Prepositions of absence and purpose (без, для)

Dative singular adjectives and possessives

Impersonal states (мне холодно)

Impersonal obligation (надо, нужно)

Impersonal permission (можно / нельзя)

Instrumental adjectives and pronouns

Reciprocal verbs (с + Instrumental)

Reflexive possessive pronouns (свой)

Reflexive pronouns (себя)

Specific indefinite pronouns (-то)

Non-specific indefinite pronouns (-нибудь)

Negative pronouns (никто / ничто)

Numbers 11 to 20

Question	Answer
to be late (perfective)	опоздать
The passenger who was late missed the plane.	Опоздавший пассажир не успел на самолёт.
I read all the letters that arrived.	Я прочитал все пришедшие письма.
Because of the traffic jam, the passengers who were late bought new tickets.	Из-за пробки опоздавшие пассажиры купили новые билеты.
the policeman	полицейский
to escape	сбежать
The policeman is looking for the escaped criminal.	Полицейский ищет сбежавшего преступника.
to disappear	пропасть
The rescuers found the missing boy.	Спасатели нашли пропавшего мальчика.
to investigate	расследовать
Who is investigating the case of the missing money?	Кто расследует дело о пропавших деньгах?
to get lost	заблудиться
The adults helped the lost child.	Взрослые помогли заблудившемуся ребёнку.
This is the most dangerous place for lost children.	Это самое опасное место для заблудившихся детей.
to perish	погибнуть
Someone brought flowers to the fallen hero.	Кто-то принёс цветы погибшему герою.
The daughter of the deceased writer wrote a book.	Дочь умершего писателя написала книгу.
to arrive	прибыть
The police officer who arrived yesterday investigated the crime.	Прибывший вчера полицейский расследовал преступление.
The guard who arrived saw the escaped criminal.	Прибывший охранник увидел сбежавшего преступника.
The hero who perished saved the city.	Погибший герой спас город.