Breakdown of Она говорила тихо, будто боялась.
она
she / it (for a feminine noun)
говорить
to speak, to talk
тихо
quietly
бояться
to be afraid
будто
as though
Questions & Answers about Она говорила тихо, будто боялась.
The lesson is about verbs of seeming. How does будто fit into this, and could we use казалось instead?
Будто means as if or as though. It is a conjunction that creates a sense of seeming by comparing actions. You could use казалось (it seemed) here, but the sentence structure would have to change, for example: Она говорила тихо, и казалось, что она боится (She spoke quietly, and it seemed that she was afraid).
Why is боялась in the past tense when English uses the subjunctive were afraid?
After будто (or как будто), Russian does not need a special subjunctive form like English does. It simply uses the normal past tense боялась because the main action (говорила) is also in the past tense, showing that both things were happening at the same time.
Why is the imperfective verb говорила used here instead of the perfective сказала?
Говорила is used because it focuses on the ongoing process of her speaking. The perfective сказала would mean she said one specific thing and finished, but here we are describing the continuous manner in which she was talking.
Why isn't there a second она before боялась?
In Russian, if the subject of the second clause is the same as the first, it is very common to drop the pronoun. Since Она is already the subject of говорила, repeating it before боялась is unnecessary and would sound repetitive.
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