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Tag Archives: verb families

All Work and No Play: Russian Verbs Related to Работать Posted by on Jun 24, 2019

hands holding 100-dollar bills

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…

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Russian Verbs with Prefixes: Пускать for Letting Go Posted by on Aug 30, 2018

cinema

Several readers have commented that they find posts on verbs with prefixes helpful, so here is another verb “family.” This time, we will look at verbs with the пуск-/пуст- roots that share the general sense of allowing something. The verbs are given in pairs of imperfective and perfective. Пуска́ть/Пусти́ть This verbs means “to let someone…

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Knowledge Is Power: Verbs With ‑знать in Russian Posted by on Jan 8, 2018

books

Знать (to know) is one of the most common verbs in Russian. There are also several important verbs derived from it. Узнать — To Discover/Learn Узнать (perfective)/узнавать (imperfective) is used to talk about learning some information for the first time. О́коло полугода жильцы́ пыта́лись узна́ть, что, со́бственно, происхо́дит. The residents tried for about half a…

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