Breakdown of Не поднимай эту сумку, она тяжёлая.
не
not
она
she / it (for a feminine noun)
сумка
bag
этот
this [f: эта, n: это]
тяжёлый
heavy
поднимать
to lift, to raise
Questions & Answers about Не поднимай эту сумку, она тяжёлая.
Why do we use the imperfective verb поднимай here instead of the perfective подними?
In Russian, negative commands (telling someone not to do something) almost always take the imperfective aspect, even for a single, specific action. If you used the perfective (не подними), it would change the meaning to a warning about an accidental action, like "watch out so you don't accidentally lift it."
Since this lesson involves vertical movement, is поднимать a verb of motion?
No. Although поднимать (to lift/raise) and its reflexive form подниматься (to go up) describe movement, they behave like regular verbs. They don't have the special unidirectional and multidirectional pairs that true verbs of motion (like идти or ходить) have. You simply use their standard imperfective/perfective pair (поднимать / поднять).
Why does the second part of the sentence use она to refer to an inanimate bag?
In Russian, pronouns must match the grammatical gender of the noun they replace, regardless of whether the object is alive. Since сумка (bag) is a feminine noun, we must use the feminine pronoun она (translated as "it" here) and the feminine adjective тяжёлая.
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