Tag Archives: Russian roots
Talk About Employment with This Russian Root Posted by Maria on Dec 3, 2019
You might know работа, work, and other related words as a helpful word family for talking about employment. Have you heard about труд and other related words, though? This post will look at how this word family can help you express ideas about jobs and labo(u)r. Труд The basic word is труд, labo(u)r, effort, hard…
Give or Take: Russian Verbs with -давать Posted by Maria on Nov 14, 2019
It may be useful to learn words in related “families,” so let us look at several verbs that share their root with дава́ть [dɐˈvatʲ], to give. I will include the imperfective and perfective forms of the verb and any related nouns for each verb. This post does not cover every verb or every possible meaning…
All Work and No Play: Russian Verbs Related to Работать Posted by Maria on Jun 24, 2019
Работать, to work, is one of the of first verbs one learns in Russian. It very useful in its primary sense, but it also has some interesting “relatives” — derivative verbs that have a slightly different meaning. This post will look at five of them, given in pairs of imperfective and perfective. Подраба́тывать/подрабо́тать The prefix…
Russian “Хозяй-” Root for Ownership and Property Posted by Maria on Nov 20, 2018
Russian has a versatile root that is used to describe ideas having to do with ownership, such as a property or a landlord. Can you guess what that root is? It is -хозяй-. This post will look at some of the most common words with this root. Хозя́ин/хозя́йка Хозя́ин (masculine), хозя́йка (feminine), and хозя́ева (plural)…
Mutually Beneficial: Russian Words With Взаимо- You Need To Know Posted by Maria on Dec 6, 2016
Взаимо- is a useful root that lets you create compound words with the sense of “mutual” or “two-way.” This post will list some common words made with that root. First, взаимо- is related to the adjective “взаимный,” “mutual.” Сохрани́ть доброжела́тельность, чу́вство взаи́много уваже́ния, любви́ ― о́чень сло́жная шту́ка. (Keeping that friendliness, the feeling of mutual respect and…
Knowledge Transfer: Verbs With The Root -вещ- Posted by Maria on Nov 26, 2015
I thought it may be interesting to look at a “family” of words related by a shared root. One such family refers to all things knowledge and knowledge transfer. Knowledge The basic form is ве́дать, a bookish/archaic way of saying “to know.” Он не ве́дает, что твори́т. (He knows not what he’s doing.) The word…