Plural Past Tense

In Ukrainian, the past tense functions more like a participle than a conjugated verb. This means it agrees with the subject in number and gender rather than 'person'.

1. Formation:
To form the plural past tense, take the infinitive, remove the -ти ending, and add -ли.

• читати (to read) → чита- + -ли = читали
• робити (to do) → роби- + -ли = робили

2. Consonant Stems and Dental Drops:
If the stem ends in a consonant, the -л- suffix usually attaches directly to that consonant (e.g., нести → несли). However, in verbs where the -с- before the infinitive ending represents an underlying dental consonant (д or т), this -с- is dropped before adding -ли:

• вести (to lead) → вели (not весли)
• плести (to braid) → плели

3. The Suffix -нути:
Many verbs ending in -нути drop this suffix when forming the past tense:

• зникнути (to disappear) → зникли
• замерзнути (to freeze) → замерзли

4. Irregular Motion Verbs:
The verb йти (to go) and its prefixed derivatives (like прийти or піти) have an irregular plural past tense stem where the root changes to йш-:

• йти → йшли
• прийти → прийшли
• піти → пішли

5. Reflexive Verbs:
When using reflexive verbs, the reflexive suffix -ся is attached after the plural ending. After the vowel 'и', it usually shortens to -сь in modern speech, though -ся is also grammatically correct.

• вмиватися → вмивали + -ся/-сь = вмивалися (or вмивались)

6. Usage:
Because the verb form is the same for 'we', 'you', and 'they', you often need to include the nominative subject pronoun for clarity unless the context makes it obvious who is performing the action.