Questions & Answers about Я прочитал книгу и написал письмо.
Why does this sentence use прочитал and написал instead of the basic verbs читал and писал?
Both прочитал and написал are perfective verbs. We use them here because they describe completed, single actions in the past. The speaker finished reading the book, and then finished writing the letter. If we used the imperfective читал or писал, it would just mean 'I was reading' or 'I was writing,' without telling us if the tasks were finished.
How do these verbs become perfective?
A very common way to make a verb perfective in Russian is by adding a small part called a prefix to the front of the imperfective verb. Here, the prefix про- is added to читал (read), and на- is added to писал (wrote). You will often just memorize which prefix goes with which verb as you learn new pairs.
How do we know from this sentence that the speaker is a man?
In the Russian past tense, verbs must match the gender of the person doing the action. Both прочитал and написал end in -л, which is the masculine ending. If the speaker were a woman, she would add an -а to the verbs: Я прочитала книгу и написала письмо.
Why is the word for book spelled книгу here instead of книга?