Breakdown of Девушка заулыбалась и посмотрела на меня.
и
and
я
I
на
on, at / by (transport) / to (a place) / to (in answer to)
посмотреть
to watch (perfective) / to look at (perfective)
девушка
young woman
заулыбаться
to break into a smile
Questions & Answers about Девушка заулыбалась и посмотрела на меня.
How does the prefix за- change the meaning of the verb улыбаться here?
The prefix за- is often added to verbs to indicate the sudden or spontaneous beginning of an action. While the base verb улыбаться means to smile or to be smiling (imperfective), adding за- makes it perfective and changes the meaning to broke into a smile or started smiling.
Why does заулыбалась end in -сь, while посмотрела doesn't?
Заулыбаться is a reflexive verb, which you can tell by the -ся ending in its infinitive form. When conjugated in the past tense for a feminine subject, the ending is -ла, and the reflexive particle shrinks to -сь because it follows a vowel. Посмотреть (to look) is not a reflexive verb, so it simply takes the standard feminine past tense ending -ла.
Both заулыбалась and посмотрела are perfective verbs. Why are they paired like this?
Using consecutive perfective verbs in a single sentence is how Russian expresses a sequence of completed actions. It tells a quick story with a chain of events: first she broke into a smile, and then she looked at me. If the sentence used imperfective verbs, it would sound like a description of ongoing, simultaneous background actions (she was smiling and looking).
Why do we need the preposition на before меня?
In Russian, to express looking at something or someone, you must use the verb смотреть (or its perfective form посмотреть) followed by the preposition на and the accusative case. Меня is the accusative form of я (I).
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