How will it be right: wrong or wrong?

How should one correctly say and write: “was mistaken” or “was mistaken”? The submitted article will help you answer the question.

general information

Many people think about how to correctly say: “wrong” or “wrong”. It should be noted that both of the options presented have the full right to exist. To verify this, we give a few illustrative examples:

• "How wrong I was in people, always thinking badly of them."
• “Once again, I was mistaken in telling her about my feelings.”

As you can see, these two expressions are quite acceptable in Russian speech. But in what cases should they be used? We will tell about it right now.

The word "was wrong"

Before you understand how and in which cases you should write “made a mistake” or “made a mistake”, you need to analyze these words in more detail. In the first example, the word we are testing is an imperfective verb. How did we determine this? The fact is that the expression “wrong” answers the following question: what did you do? Proceeding from this, we can safely sound the rule corresponding to our case: verbs of the imperfect type indicate repeated or long-term actions, without any indication of their completeness. In the infinitive, such words answer the question “what to do?”. Here are some examples: make mistakes, sing, dance, go broke, boil, admire, run, re-read, dream, fly, sit, bounce, etc.

Tenses of the Verbs of the Imperfect Form

“I’ve been wrong more than once” - in this case, the verb of the imperfect type is in the past tense, that is, it answers the question “what did you do?” (“What did you do?”, “What did you do?”, “What did you do?”). In addition, such a word can be put in the present and future difficult times. For example: "what are they doing?" - are mistaken, "what are we doing?" - we are mistaken, “what will they do?” - make a mistake, "what will I do?" - make mistakes, etc.

As you can see, verbs of the imperfect type always indicate repeated or long-term actions without any indication of their completeness, and they also have all 3 forms of tense (present, past and future). Therefore, the word “wrong” must be used in those sentences where such a meaning is required.

The word "wrong"

“Sorry, I made a mistake with the number” - in this example, the word we are checking answers the question “what did you do?” Accordingly, the verb “wrong” - a perfect form. Such a word obeys another rule and has a different meaning than the previous expression.

So, all verbs of the perfect form differ in that they indicate the completeness of a certain action, its end, beginning or result. In indefinite form, such words answer the following question: "what to do?"

Here is a good example: to make a mistake, sing, dance, go broke, boil, admire, run away, re-read, dream, bounce, etc. If you compare the previous words and those presented, you can easily notice a noticeable difference.

Tenses of the verbs of the perfect form

“He made a mistake with the address” - in this example the verb we are checking is in the past tense, as it answers the question “what did you do?”. Other forms of this expression are: “what did?” - I was mistaken, "what did you do?" - mistaken, "what did?" - was mistaken. It should also be noted that in addition to the past, the verbs of the perfect form can be set in the future tense. Here are some illustrative examples: they’ll make a mistake, come out; make a mistake, buy it; make a mistake, swim; make a mistake, count, etc.

As for the present tense, the verbs of the perfect form do not have it.

To summarize

The question of how to write correctly: “wrong” or “wrong” is fundamentally wrong. After all, both of these words are acceptable for Russian speech. However, they should be used in different contexts.

After the analysis of the two presented expressions, we can safely say that verbs of the perfect form always indicate the completeness of an action, and also have 2 forms of tense (past and future, but not present). Therefore, the word "wrong" must be used in those sentences where only the described meaning is required.

Conversion

Almost every verb from a perfect form can be transformed into an imperfect, and vice versa. For clarity, we give the following example:

• "What did you do?" - was mistaken, "what did?" - was mistaken;
• put - put;
• found - searched;
• caught - caught;
• take - take, etc.

As you can see, verbs of the type of imperfect and perfect can differ not only in completeness or, on the contrary, incompleteness of any action, but also in pronunciation and spelling.

Exercises to consolidate the material

1. From the proposals presented below, it is necessary to select verbs of the form of the imperfect:

• The sky and earth turned white, and the river froze so much that it easily withstood man.
• Having hit the road, the ball jumped up, described an arc in the air and again fell down.
• She looked at him for a long time, and then dared, went up and asked how he was doing.
• He walked along the promenade and all the time thinking about how to solve this difficult task.
• It rained for a very long time, and then stopped, after which the sun immediately appeared.
• Light fog stood far above the beautiful fields.
  

2. From the proposals presented below, it is necessary to select verbs of the perfect form:

• Squirrels ate nuts in a manger, and then quickly ran away.
• At the bottom of the river lay a large plate of metal.
• A pine tree never bends under such a weight, and a birch has broken.
• The time has come and sakura has blossomed in Japanese gardens.
• We struggled to the old hayloft to hide from the rain.
• The water in the river became cloudy, but they still went swimming.