Grammar: aspect and case when a rule box misleads
A past-paper grammar item gives a seven-sentence text about a school trip to Suzdal and asks students to choose the correct verb form and case ending. The sentences include: «Каждое лето мы (ездили / поехали) в Суздаль»; «Когда мы (приехали / приезжали), шёл дождь»; «Мы (посмотрели / смотрели) музей и (пошли / ходили) обедать»; «Он (писал / написал) письмо за два часа»; «Мы долго гуляли (по город / по городу)»; «(Несмотря на дождь / Несмотря на дождя) экскурсия состоялась»; «Мы вернулись (из Суздаля / с Суздаля)». The textbook rule box says: 'Use the imperfective for repeated or prolonged actions and the perfective for a single completed result.' Sana applies it mechanically: she chooses смотрели because 'they looked for some time', and писал because 'two hours signals duration'.
1. Correct Sana's choices in the museum sentence and in the letter sentence, and explain the real criterion she missed.
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Museum sentence: «Мы посмотрели музей и пошли обедать». The two verbs form a chain of completed events: first the visit was finished, then they left. The perfective presents each action as a single whole with a result. «Смотрели» would describe the process or a repeated visit, which the chain does not do.
Letter sentence: «Он написал письмо за два часа». The phrase за + accusative measures the time taken to reach a result, so the perfective is required. Without за - «Он писал письмо два часа» - the two hours measure the process, and the imperfective is correct. Sana saw 'two hours' and stopped there; the preposition changed the meaning.
Criterion: aspect is not decided by duration alone. Ask whether the sentence presents the action as a completed whole with a result, or as a process, repetition or state. The time expression and the surrounding verbs are clues, not automatic triggers.
2. Choose the correct case forms in «гуляли по город / по городу», «несмотря на дождь / дождя» and «из Суздаля / с Суздаля», giving the rule for each.
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по городу - the preposition по in the meaning 'along, through, about a place' governs the dative: по городу, по улице, по парку.
несмотря на дождь - this fixed concessive preposition governs the accusative: несмотря на + accusative (несмотря на погоду, на усталость).
из Суздаля - 'from' a city or enclosed space uses из + genitive: из Москвы, из Суздаля, из школы. С + genitive is used for surfaces and events (с работы, с площади, с концерта), not for a city as a whole.
A useful exam check is to learn prepositions with their case, not as vocabulary items alone; the ending then follows automatically.
3. Rewrite «Он писал письмо два часа» so that the two hours mean completion, and explain every change.
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Result: «Он написал письмо за два часа».
Changes and reasons:
- писал → написал: the sentence now reports a finished result, so the perfective is needed.
- два часа → за два часа: за + accusative expresses the time within which the result was achieved. Bare accusative of duration (два часа) measures how long the process lasted.
- The object письмо stays in the accusative because написать is transitive and the object is not negated.
Meaning contrast: «Он писал письмо два часа» = he spent two hours writing (and we are not told whether he finished). «Он написал письмо за два часа» = he finished the letter in two hours. This pair is a standard exam trap and is worth memorising as a contrast, not as a single rule.