PRESENT TENSE
In Russian—like in many other languages—a verb changes its ending for persons. For example, I work, he works. The same thing happens with Russian verbs too. But we have different endings for each person. This changing of endings for verbs is called conjugation (спряжение).
We replace the infinitive ending -ть or -ти. There are two types of conjugation. The type of conjugation depends on the ending of the verb in the infinitive form. The 1-st type verbs end in -ать, -ять, -еть or -ти.
The 2-d type verbs end in -ить and also some irregular verbs.
Спряжение 1
думать — to think
я думаю
ты думаешь
он думает
мы думаем
вы думаете
они думают
Спряжение 2
говорить — to speak
я говорю
ты говоришь
он говорит
мы говорим
вы говорите
они говорят
Pay attention that for the 2-d conjugation we replace last three letters with the ending. And for the 1st—we do change only last two letters.
It is important to mention is that after 8 letters (к, г, ш, ж, щ, ч, х, ц) we don’t write the endings: -ю, -ют, -ят. We use the endings -у, -ут, -ат instead.
Example
- Я пишу, они пишут – I write, they write (not пишЮ, пишЮт)
- Они лежат – they lay (not они лежЯт)