Дать, отдать, продать...

  Russian verb дать (to give) has a big family. There are many words with -дат- made by adding prefixes and suffixes to it. Let's have a look at some of them.

дать/давать - to give

(here are its conjugations)

отдать - to give away, to give back

подать - to present, to offer, to serve, to hand in

продать - to sell

преподать - to teach

задать - to give, to set, to indicate

You can check more meanings of these words here.

A few nouns made from these verbs:

отдача - output, return, response

подача - presentation, serving, inning (in sports)

продавец - seller, salesman

продажа - sale

преподаватель - teacher

задание - task, assignment

Sentences:

Сказать and its siblings

  Сказать (to say) is a very common Russian word. Knowing it, you can easily learn a few more words that contain сказать. Think of Russian language as Lego – you can build new words by adding prefixes, suffixes, even other words. Let's look at what can be done with сказать.

сказать — to say, to tell, to speak

рассказать — to tell, to narrate

предсказать — to predict (from перед - before)

подсказать — to direct, to prompt

высказать, высказаться — to speak out, to express oneself

пересказать — to paraphrase, to retell

From these verbs you can make nouns:

сказка — fairytale

рассказ — (short) story

рассказчик — storyteller, narrator

предсказание — prediction, prophecy

предсказатель — soothsayer, prophet

подсказка — hint, prompt, cue

высказывание — observation, statement

пересказ — retelling, rendering

Сказать has -каз- for its root, с- is its prefix. Drop it, and you get to make even more words.

Russian prefix от-

  The prefix от- comes from a preposition от (from, of). Words with от- often mean moving away from somewhere.

отсюда - from here, hence

откуда - where from

отойти - leave, withdraw, stand back

отъехать - pull off, drive off

отлететь - fly off

отбежать - run away

отнести - carry away

отменить - to cancel

отложить - lay aside, save

отстать - fall behind

отвернуться - face away, turn one's back

отодвинуться - to move away

Sentences:

Russian morphology: negative prefix не-

  Russian prefix не- comes from нет and works just as English prefixes un-, non-, in- etc. When you see a word starting with не-, there is a very big chance it means something negative. If you know what this word would mean without не-, you can guess the meaning of it with the prefix.

Some examples:

Adjectives:

небольшой - small

невысокий - short, low

неженатый - single, unmarried

неважный - unimportant

непонятный - incomprehensible

некрасивый - ugly

некоторый - some, unspecified

невероятный - incredible, impossible

нежирный - low-fat

Pronouns:

некто - somebody

нечто - something

Adverbs:

Are Russian words too long?

 Чувствовать, необыкновенный, железнодорожный, бессердечный, преподаватель, североамериканский... These words are so long! How can you learn them at all? Russian language might seem tough, but fear no more – I'm going to show you that even such monsters as железнодорожный are learnable.

First, remember that big words are made from smaller words and morphemes. For example 'North American' in Russian is североамериканский. It's made from words северный (northern) and американский (American). Северный is made from север (north), and aмериканский is made from Америка (America).

Преподаватель (a teacher) is made from преподавать (to teach) which in turn is made from давать (to give). Пре-, по- and -тель are prefixes and a suffix. So in the heart of this big word lies a short давать that you can easily learn.

From железо (iron) we can make железный (iron, adj.), from дорога (road) — дорожный (related to roads), and together they make железнодорожный — railroad (adj.). Looks less scary now, doesn't it?

Поприветствовать (to greet) is made from привет (hello) by adding a few morphemes. I'm sure you know привет already. ;)

По-весеннему (like in spring) is made from весна (spring).

Prefixes без- and бес-.

  If you've studied Russian for a while you've probably noticed that this language is rich with prefixes and suffixes. By using them you can build new words.  Today let's look at the prefixes без- and бес-.

без- and бес-

Both mean «without». They're similar to English -less, -free. They can be used in:

• nouns – безопасность, safety (без + опасность, danger); безработица, worklessness (без + работа, work)
• verbs – бездействовать, be inactive (без + действовать, to act)
• adverbs – безнадёжно, hopelessly (без + надежда, hope); бесследно, without a trace (без + след, trace)
• adjectives – бездомный, homeless (без+ дом, home); безоблачный, cloudless (без + облако, cloud).

Sometimes you just add the prefix to another word like in безопасность, sometimes you change the original word like in бездомный.

When to use без- and when бес-? It's pretty simple. Look at the next sound in the word. If it's a sonant or a vowel, use без-. If it's a breath consonant, you use бес-.

Russian sonants are:

Б, В, Г, Д, З, Ж, Й, Л, М, Н, Р