Breakdown of Менеджер закончил копировать документы, и самое трудное задание готово.
и
and
трудный
difficult
документ
document
менеджер
manager
готовый
ready
самый
most
закончить
to finish (perfective)
задание
task (assignment)
копировать
to copy
Questions & Answers about Менеджер закончил копировать документы, и самое трудное задание готово.
Since the manager completely finished the action, why is копировать imperfective? Shouldn't it be perfective?
In Russian, "phase verbs" (verbs that indicate starting, continuing, or finishing an action) must always be followed by an imperfective infinitive. Even though the action is completely done, the perfective verb закончил already expresses the completion. The verb копировать simply names the process that was brought to an end.
Why did we use the perfective закончил instead of the imperfective заканчивал here?
We use the perfective form закончил because the act of finishing was a single, successfully completed event with a clear result: the task is now done. If we used the imperfective заканчивал, it would mean he was in the process of finishing, or that he used to finish copying documents regularly.
How does самое трудное задание translate to "the hardest task"?
To say "the most" or add "-est" to an adjective in Russian, you use the modifier самый right before the adjective. Both words must match the noun they describe in gender, number, and case. Since задание is a neuter noun in the nominative case, we use the neuter forms самое and трудное.
Why is the word for "ready" written as готово instead of the full adjective готовое?
Готово is a short-form adjective. In Russian, short adjectives are heavily used when the adjective is the main predicate of the sentence (meaning it acts as the state of being, translating to "is ready"). It ends in -о to match the neuter noun задание.
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