Russian · Chapter 1 · Lesson 12 · Grammar primer
Conjugation: two patterns and a missing present
Six endings in the present, four in the past, and the verb to be disappears entirely. The past tense is easier than the present.
The short version
Russian has no verb to be in the present
Byt exists in the past and the future and simply vanishes in the present, so a sentence with no verb in it is complete and perfectly normal. English speakers find the gap uncomfortable for about a fortnight and then stop noticing it entirely.
Ya zdes.
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