[ghettoelleth]

Can someone please please, oh pretty please, decline to past tense the verbs swim and glide?

Thank you so very much in advance of losing my mind.

[Alassante]

I think glided and swam.

But I am quite possibly wrong. I ferget allotta my grammer and maked my beta crazied.

[vladazhael]

yeah, i'll second glided and swam. that was what my first instinct said, and ms word seems to agree (though i hesitate to use that as a logical basis for much of anything).

[ellisk]

[ghettoelleth]

Throwback to catechism in Latin, you know, Nicene Creed and all that happy crappy. Although I'm sure the Russians, Poles, Greeks, Czechs, etc will be happy to know they've been doing it wrong for hundreds of years.

Declining verbs live! But the Amercian's don't....

Shut up and practise your verb declension, Vladimir.

[Rhapsody]

Relying on MS word?? Really? My loyal dictionary with irregular verbs (UK-style) says: swim- swam-swum (inifinitive, past tense, past perfect)

So depending on which tense... Glide isn't irregular. But this is most likely too late, so eum

[NancyBrooke]

[ellisk]

Sorry Ghetto, I tried but can't resist this: (Nerd alert!)

From Websters:
declension
noun

1. In certain languages, eg Latin: any of various sets of different forms taken by nouns, adjectives or pronouns to indicate case, number and gender.
2. The act of stating these forms. See also conjugation, decline
3. Any group of nouns or adjectives showing the same pattern of forms.

conjugation
noun

1a. grammar.
The inflection of a verb to indicate number, person, tense, voice and mood;
1b. grammar.
A particular class of verbs having the same set of inflections. See also declension.

Thus, for example in Latin, you have 1st-5th declension nouns (a, o, i, u, and e-stem nouns) into the nominative, genetive, dative, accusative, ablative, locative and vocative cases and 1st-4th conjugation verbs (-âre, -êre, -ere, -îre) plus the irregulars, which some teachers consider to be a 5th conjugation set by themselves.

In Russian, nouns (and their adjectives) decline based on their gender (masculine, feminine and neuter) into the nominative, accusative, genetive, locative, dative and instrumental cases. Verbs in Russian conjugate differently depending on whether their stem ends in a consonant or a vowel and the endings are different for different consonants and vowels.

You realize when you start talking foreign langauge grammar, I am going to be a total nerd since I taught Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, Russian, Ukrainian for 15 years...

[Rhapsody]

[LydiaB]

In Russian, you have to remember 6 forms of every singular noun (ie., each noun has 6 different endings). Once you've managed to remember whether this particular noun is masculine, feminine, or neutral (thus cutting down your ending possibilities from 18 to 6) you have to think about what case you're using.

For example:

It's a fish! (nominative), Let's cook the fish (accusative), I'll have my pancakes with fish (instrumental).

In English, as you can see, it's all just FISH, which is thankfully very easy to remember. In Russian each fish has a different tail.

If you add plurals into the equation, there are even more endings to take into consideration, and what's more, all these endings apply to any adjectives as well. So, if you're not a native speaker, and you're trying to learn all this stuff, you go a bit

Yes, well, anyway, end of grammar lesson.

[Rhapsody]

Yes, but I was talking about Germanic Languages... now my German is a bit rusty, but I do know the gender of a word influences the noun you use... since German is related to English...

[SpaceWeavil]

[SpaceWeavil]

[LydiaB]

I guess what I'm trying to say, none to clearly , is that nouns in Germanic languages decline differently from those in Russian because while, in German, you have to consider gender, in Russian you have to consider gender and also case. My German is also very rusty (I'd give my GCSE certificate back if I could, I feel such a fraud in having it ) but I don't think case matters. In English, case only clings on with certain pronouns: he/him etc.

Please forgive me if I'm missing the point of your question; it's quite possible for me in my current sleepy state.

[LydiaB]