• Part 1: Intro.
• Part 2: Classes 9-16 and irregular verbs.
• Part 3: -еть and -ять verbs.
• Part 4: -ить and -уть verbs + all moving-stress verbs.
• Part 5: -ать verbs.
• Part 6: -вать verbs + stress-type summary for all verb endings.

Part 3: -еть and -ять verbs

Here's an outline of the strategy moving forward: the big 5 endings are -ать, -ить, -уть, -еть, and -ять.

• In this post, we'll give you concrete rules to conjugate all -еть and -ять verbs.
• In part 4, we'll cover -ить and -уть verbs.
• In part 5, we'll attempt to dissect the monster class of -ать verbs.
• In parts 5 and 6, we'll completely dissect the monster class of -ать verbs.

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-ять verbs

We'll start with -ять verbs because they're easier. Amazingly (for Russian), there's a rule with no exceptions: look at the letter immediately before -ять.

• If it's о, then it's [5b]. There are only 2 of these: стоя́ть, боя́ться.
• If it's а/е/у, then it's [6a] or [6b].
  • There is only one [6b] -ять verb: смея́ться.
  • The rest are all [6a] and stressed on the letter before -ять (like та́ять, наде́яться, чу́ять).
• In all other cases, it's either [1a] or one of the weird cases we saw earlier:
  • [14b]: -нять (like понять), взять, мять.
  • [14c]: -нять (like принять), -ъять, распять.
  • [15a]: застрять.

This rule has no exceptions in the top 2929.

In the [1a] cases (there are over 120 of these), the stress is always on -я́ть. There are only 2 exceptions: кла́няться and ка́шлять.

Strange fun fact: every -ять verb that has both a к and an а in it, is stressed on the а. Here are all of them: кла́няться, ка́шлять, зака́шляться, ка́яться.

Thoughts. -ять is by far the easiest ending of the big 5. Any beginner material will teach you стоять, смеяться, and надеяться, which are all super-high-frequency verbs. This means you already know model verbs for all the [5] and [6] cases. Once you get the handful of [14] and [15] verbs out of the way, everything else is [1a].

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-еть verbs

The vast majority of these are [1a] (like уметь) or [5b] (like сидеть). Here's the full list of exceptions:

• [5a]: ви́деть, оби́деть, зави́сеть*.
• [5c]: хоте́ть**, смотре́ть, терпе́ть, верте́ть.
• [9b]: мере́ть, пере́ть, тере́ть.
• [12a]: греть.
• [12b]: петь.
• [15a]: деть.

Note: зави́сеть (to depend) [5a] is a weird one. It obviously comes from за + висе́ть (to hang behind), but has a different stress than висе́ть [5b]. I'm not aware of any other Russian verb that behaves like this.

Outside of these exceptions, how do you tell if a -еть verb is [1a] or [5b]? Rote memorization lol. I'd love to know if anyone has figured out a better way to do this.

Here are all 22 roots in [5b] ordered by frequency: сидеть, глядеть, висеть, гореть, лететь, велеть, блестеть, шуметь, гудеть, греметь, звенеть, скрипеть, кипеть, свистеть, шипеть, хрустеть, кряхтеть, хрипеть, сопеть, шелестеть, храпеть, пыхтеть.

I'm guessing only the first 8 (everything up to шуметь) are really worth learning. The last 14 all involve making some sort of noise or sound (buzz, ring, rattle, jingle, snore, groan, wheeze, to name a few), which I imagine is used heavily in books, but not so much in real life. Can a native please confirm/deny this?

Thoughts. Other than classes 9 through 15, which were addressed in part 1, you probably already know видеть, хотеть, смотреть, сидеть, and уметь, which means you already know model verbs for all the cases.

I think a reasonable beginner/intermediate strategy is to learn the first 6 roots in [5b] (сидеть, глядеть, висеть, гореть, лететь, велеть) and just blindly assume anything new is [1a] until you're corrected by a native. (Saying something like я храпею, instead of я храплю, isn't really embarrassing; it's a very understandable mistake made by a foreigner and your intended meaning is clear and unambiguous to a native, so this strategy certainly doesn't hinder communication.)