Russian Reflexive Verbs: The -ся Ending and Its Five Jobs

A Russian reflexive verb is any verb with -ся stuck on the end: встреча́ться (vstrechatsya, to meet), боя́ться (boyatsya, to be afraid), нравиться (nravitsya, to be pleasing). The name is misleading. Only a minority of them are reflexive in the English sense of doing something to yourself. The ending actually does five different jobs, and the verb you will use most often, to like, belongs to the job that has nothing to do with the self at all.

The good news comes first: the form is almost free. The meaning is where the work is.

The form: add -ся, or -сь after a vowel

Conjugate the verb exactly as you normally would, then glue the ending on after everything else. The rule for which spelling is purely about sound:

• after a consonant (including -ть, -л and -й): -ся
• after a vowel: -сь

Here is the first-conjugation встреча́ться (to meet) beside the second-conjugation боя́ться (to be afraid), so you can see that the ending does not care which pattern it sits on:

Read down the right-hand edge of each column: -сь after the vowels of я and вы, -ся after the consonants everywhere else. The past tense works the same way. The masculine form ends in -л, a consonant, so it takes -ся; the other three end in a vowel and take -сь:

The imperative follows suit: успоко́йся (uspokoysya, calm down) after the consonant й, садись (sadis, sit down) after the vowel и. The stress almost always stays where it was on the verb without the ending (a few past forms, such as начался́, shift it onto the ending), and the verb keeps its own conjugation class. That is the entire form.

One spelling trap is worth knowing on day one. The infinitive -ться and the third-person -тся are pronounced identically, roughly -tsa, and Russian schoolchildren get them wrong in writing for years. The test they are taught works for you too: if the question is что делать? (what to do?), it has the soft sign, встреча́ться; if it is что делает? (what does it do?), it does not, встречается.

Job one: doing it to yourself

This is the meaning the name promises, and it covers a smallish group of everyday routine verbs, mostly about the body: washing, dressing, defending yourself.

Я одева́юсь. - I am getting dressed.

Я одеваю сы́на. - I am dressing my son.

The second sentence has a direct object, сы́на, so no -ся. The first has none, because the object is you, and the ending stands in for it. The same pair works for мыться (to wash, yourself) against washing something else.

English does this with myself sometimes (I defended myself) and with nothing at all the rest of the time (I got dressed, I washed). Russian is more consistent: whenever the action loops back on the subject as part of a routine, the ending is there.

Job two: doing it to each other

With a plural subject, -ся often means the action is mutual. English needs each other or a special verb; Russian needs two letters.

Мы встреча́емся за́втра. - We are meeting tomorrow.

Мы познако́мились в шко́ле. - We met (got to know each other) at school.

Уви́димся! - See you! (literally: we will see each other)

The farewell уви́димся (uvidimsya) is worth learning as a phrase in its own right; it is a common way to say goodbye to anyone you expect to see again.

Not every verb does this. Люби́ть (to love) does not become mutual with -ся; for that Russian uses the phrase друг дру́га, each other: они́ лю́бят друг дру́га, they love each other. The reciprocal -ся belongs to a fixed set of verbs, mostly about meeting, greeting, kissing and quarrelling, and you learn them as you meet them.

Job three: it happens on its own

This is the biggest group and the one English speakers find strangest, because English uses one verb for both halves. In English, I opened the door and the door opened use the same opened. Russian refuses: if nobody is doing it to the door, the verb takes -ся.

Every left-hand verb has a direct object in the accusative. Every right-hand verb has none, and that is precisely why it has the ending. Фильм начина́ется в во́семь (the film starts at eight) needs the ending just as much as the door does: nobody is starting the film, it simply starts.

Job four: it is done to the subject (a passive)

With a thing as the subject, an imperfective -ся verb can work as a passive: the thing is having something done to it, by unnamed people, usually as a general rule.

Как э́то сло́во пишется? - How is this word written? (How do you spell it?)

Э́та кни́га читается легко́. - This book reads easily.

The first one is a sentence you will actually need. Two limits keep this job small: it is used almost only with inanimate subjects, and almost only with imperfective verbs. A completed passive (the house was built) uses a participle instead, which is a later topic. At A2, recognise the passive -ся when you read it and do not go out of your way to build it.

Job five: the ending is just part of the word

Finally, a large group of common verbs never appear without -ся, or mean something unrelated without it. There is no job to analyse here; the ending is simply part of the word.

This is where the real vocabulary work is. Где нахо́дится шко́ла? means where is the school?, not where does the school find itself?; чем ты занима́ешься? is how you ask someone what they do. Я собира́юсь позвони́ть ма́ме is I am going to ring Mum. None of these can be worked out from the verb without the ending, so learn each -ся verb as its own word, exactly as you learn aspect pairs as pairs.

Боя́ться has one more habit to learn: what you are afraid of goes in the genitive. Я бою́сь соба́к is I am afraid of dogs, with соба́к in the genitive plural, and не бо́йся! is don't be afraid!

Нравиться: the most-used -ся verb, and the upside-down one

Beginners need I like in their first week, and Russian builds it back to front. Нравиться means to be pleasing, so the thing you like is the grammatical subject, and the person who likes it goes in the dative:

Мне нра́вится му́зыка. - I like music. (literally: music is pleasing to me)

Ей нра́вится э́тот фильм. - She likes this film.

Мне нра́вятся кни́ги. - I like books.

Look at the third one. The verb is plural, нра́вятся, because the books are the subject, not you. In the past it agrees with the thing liked too: мне понра́вился фильм (masculine, the film) but мне понра́вилась кни́га (feminine, the book). The dative case article covers the rest of this pattern, because a lot of Russian feelings are built the same way.

The same dative shape gives one of the loveliest impersonal uses of -ся: мне не хо́чется is I don't feel like it, and мне не спится is I can't get to sleep, literally it does not sleep to me. Nobody is doing anything; the ending turns the verb into something that happens, or fails to happen, to you.

Mistakes English speakers make

Dropping -ся because English has no object. The lesson starts, the door opened, the car stopped: English uses the bare verb, so learners write рабо́та начина́ет. Without -ся, Russian hears a verb waiting for its object: work starts... what? Ask whether anything is receiving the action. If nothing is, you need the ending.

Adding себя́ as well. Because -ся once meant себя́, learners who have been told it means oneself sometimes write both. Я одева́юсь себя́ is wrong. Use себя́ only when the self is the point or follows a preposition: он ду́мает то́лько о себе́, he thinks only about himself.

Getting нравиться the wrong way round. Я нра́влюсь кни́га is not I like the book; я нра́влюсь means I am pleasing to someone, and it is a real sentence with a very different meaning. Put yourself in the dative and let the thing you like be the subject.

Using называться for people. Как э́то называ́ется? is exactly how you ask what a thing is called. For a person, Russian uses звать: what is your name is как вас зову́т? Asking a person как вы называетесь? sounds like you are asking what brand they are.

Writing -тся for -ться, or the other way round. Easy to hear past, easy to see in writing. Use the что делать / что делает test until it is automatic.

What to do next

Learn every -ся verb as its own vocabulary item, with the ending attached, and note next to it which job it does. The five jobs are an explanation, not a flowchart you run while speaking; after a few weeks you stop thinking about them.

Then do two things in parallel. Read the Russian verbs overview again with -ся in mind, because every pattern there applies unchanged under the ending. And go through the stories in the Russian course marking every -ся verb you meet: нра́вится, ка́жется and нахо́дится turn up in almost every one, and seeing them in context does more than any table here.