Breakdown of Вертолёт взлетит через час.
час
hour
через
in (after a period of time)
вертолёт
the helicopter
взлететь
to take off, to fly up (pf)
Questions & Answers about Вертолёт взлетит через час.
How does the prefix вз- change the meaning of the base verb to create взлетит?
The base verb лететь means 'to fly'. Adding the prefix вз- (which becomes вс- before voiceless consonants) adds the specific meaning of upward motion. So, взлететь literally means 'to fly up', which is the standard Russian way to say an aircraft is going 'to take off'.
Why does взлетит mean 'will take off' without using a future tense helper word like будет?
Because взлететь is a perfective verb, which focuses on a completed result. When you conjugate a perfective verb with normal present-tense endings, it automatically creates the simple future tense. You only use helper words like будет for the compound future tense of imperfective verbs.
Why is через used here to mean 'in' an hour instead of the preposition в?
When you want to say an event will happen 'in' a certain amount of time from now, Russian uses через (which literally means 'after' or 'across') followed by the accusative case. If you used в here, it would mean the actual process of taking off lasts for an entire hour, rather than happening one hour from now.
Learn Вертолёт взлетит через час and more in Russian
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.
- ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
- ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
- ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free