The past tense

What you will practice

• Use -л for a masculine subject.
• Use -ла for a feminine subject and -ли for a plural.
• Keep я читал and я читала apart.

Explanation

Gender

The past of читать is читал, читала, читало, and читали. A man or a masculine noun takes он читал and я читал. A woman or a feminine noun takes она читала and я читала. The pronoun я does not decide the ending. The speaker’s gender does.

Number

Plural subjects take -ли no matter what the mix is: мы читали, вы читали, они читали. There is no masculine plural ending in -лы. брат читал is one man. брат и сестра читали is plural. The past does not add a separate person marker on top of this.

The pronoun is not enough

быть follows the same idea: он был, она была, они были. A finished reading in this lesson is simply the past: Вчера она читала книгу. The aspect lesson later splits process and completion. Here the only choice is gender and number. Do not invent an ending such as читалаю.

Examples

1. Я читал.a man
2. Я читала.a woman
3. Оно читало.neuter
4. Они читали.plural
5. Она была дома.she was

Common mistakes

• я читал is a man speaking. я читала is a woman speaking. Both are first person.
• Plural is читали, not читал with a plural pronoun left to do the work.