Present tense of verbs

The present tense

Belarusian verbs fall into two conjugations. The academic grammar introduces the verb through the infinitive, transitivity and reflexivity before setting out these paradigms; for a beginner the practical question is only which set of endings a given verb takes, and the infinitive usually tells you.

First conjugation: infinitives in -аць, -яць, -аваць

Second conjugation: infinitives in -іць, -ыць, -эць

The one ending to memorise first

Every third-person plural ends in -ць, and so does the second-conjugation singular: чытаюць, гаворыць, гавораць, ідуць, жывуць. The first-conjugation singular has no -ць at all — чытае, піша, ідзе, жыве — and that is a whole class, not an exception. Belarusian pronounces that ц as a genuine soft affricate — the feature called цеканне — so it is audible, not silent.

Two very common irregulars

Notice ідзеш, ідзе, ідзём: where a soft д would stand, Belarusian has the affricate дз. This is дзеканне, and it runs through the whole language.

If your first language is English

English marks only the third person singular (I read / he reads) and leans on auxiliaries for everything else. Belarusian marks all six persons, which means the pronoun is often redundant: Чытаю on its own already says "I am reading". There is also no separate continuous form — чытаю covers both "I read" and "I am reading".