Breakdown of Он простил друга.
он
he / it (for a masculine noun) / it (for a neuter noun)
друг
friend
простить
to forgive
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Questions & Answers about Он простил друга.
Why is the perfective verb простил used here instead of the imperfective?
The perfective aspect is used because forgiving is a completed, one-time action with a clear result in this context. He did not spend time in the process of forgiving or forgive him repeatedly; he just did it, and the action is successfully finished. The imperfective form for this verb is прощал.
Why does the word for friend have an -а at the end (друга)?
In Russian, the direct object of an action takes the accusative case. For masculine nouns that represent living beings (animate nouns), the accusative ending is exactly the same as the genitive case. So, the dictionary word друг adds an -а to become друга.
The English translation says "his friend", but where is the word for "his" in the Russian sentence?
Russian frequently leaves out possessive pronouns like "his", "my", or "your" when it is obvious from the context whose friend it is. You could say Он простил своего друга, but leaving the pronoun out completely is very common and natural.
How can we tell that простил is in the past tense, and does its ending change depending on the subject?
You can recognize the Russian past tense by the -л ending. Unlike present tense verbs that change based on the person doing the action (I, you, we), past tense verbs change based on gender. Because Он (he) is masculine, the verb ends in -л. If the subject were female (she), it would be Она простила.