Why use the perfective "доказать", not the imperfective "доказывать", despite "несколько раз" referring to repeated actions?

Question

>Я уже несколько раз **доказала** тебе, что ...>{instead of}: Я уже несколько раз **доказывала** тебе, что ...I was under the impression that you should use an imperfective verb to express the idea of something happening multiple times.I wonder why a perfective verb is used in this instance. Does the adverb "уже" have anything to do with it?

Answer 1

Доказывать - to try to prove (to be in a process of proving)

Доказать - to have proven (to prove successfully)

Я уже несколько раз **доказала** тебе, - I have proven it to you several times. (It has been proven several times already. Why do you need another proof?)

Я уже несколько раз **доказывала** тебе, что ...- I have tried to prove it several times (I went through the process of proving, but it does not mean I have been successful in actually proving whatever I wanted to prove) (Доказывала-доказвала, но ничего не доказала.)

Both a correct, depending on what you want to say. If you provide more context, you can get an answer that is more sound.

Answer 2

The short answer is that you're right. If this was a native speaker who said, Я несколько рфаз докасал, " then all I can say is, the native speaker was wrong. Not all native speakers have an intuitive sense of Russian gramma, just as not all native speakers of English have an intuitive sense of English grammar.