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- "Vera went to the store."
"Vera went to the store."
Translation:Вера ходила в магазин.
22 Comments
It's not the same meaning, though. 'Vera was going to the store' means that she was literally on her way to the store at a particular point in time, whereas 'Vera went to the store' means something different in English; it can either mean 'Vera went to the store' (regularly/multiple times in the past) - Вера ходила в Магазин - OR, more counterintuitively, 'Vera went to the store ONCE, as a round trip' - Вера ходила в магазин.
Both 'Vera was going to the store' - Вера шла в магазин - and 'Vera went to the store' (regularly/multiple times in the past) - Вера ходила в Магазин - correspond to the normal imperfective usage you would find in languages like French or Spanish, even though the first uses the unidirectional and the second uses the multidirectional verb of motion in Russian, but the commonly used 'single round trip' meaning - Вера ходила в магазин - often seems strange to English speakers because it uses an imperfect aspect to express a completed single action.
So we have: она шла в магазин - she was going to the store - she left the house but didnt get to the store yet. Она пошла в магазин- she went to the store - she left the house to the store and is not back yet. Она ходила в магазин - she went to the store - she left the house to the store and is already back
Vera went to the store does not have to mean it was a round trip. Went can mean a completed action in the past. She went to the store yesterday. Was going would mean something was incomplete or something happened concurrently . While she was going to the store she saw a white cat. She was going to the store to buy milk, but the traffic was bad so she went to the library.