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- "Мальчик стоял и ждал."
18 Comments
1663
In another exercise with a similar kind of construction, the native-speakers were of the opinion that "a boy" would be expressed by re-ordering the words: Стоял и ждал мальчик.
2194
Does Russian always have to have the conjunction between the two verbs: "standing AND waiting", or can you have: "standing waiting", as in English?
If you eliminate English "and" then "waiting" becomes a gerund in a construction Past Progressive Tense+Gerund. It just happens that English present participles and gerunds have the same ending. In Russian a gerund would be translated here as деепричастие/transgressive "ожидая": "мальчик стоял ожидая" (it sounds a little awkward though).
To compare, without that English feature: стоял=stood, ждал=waited. You can't say "The boy stood waited".
2194
So, if I've understood correctly, there is no direct Russian equivalent, or at least none that would sound natural? So you would always need the "и": "was standing AND (was) waiting"?
I think you understood incorrectly... There IS a Russian equivalent of Progressive Tense+Gerund (was standing waiting) which allows to eliminate AND, but while English present particle and gerund happen to have the same ending "-ing" so no ending is changed when you eliminate AND changing the second present particle into a gerund, the Russian equivalents (verb in past+transgressive) have different endings so you have to change an ending of the word becoming a transgressive.
721
imperfective is an aspect, not a tense. стоял is a verb with a built in imperfective aspect. The past progressive form in English (e.g. was standing) is also imperfective so that's why this Russian form is used.
721
Generally the best course of action is to translate the English present perfect progressive into the past tense in Russian (and pretty much any other language).
721
I would like to think in that case that "waiting" would be ждущий, which is the present active participle. But a native speaker would have a better idea.