Prefixed Verbs of Motion

17 апреля 2019

It is also possible to add a prefix to a verb of motion to slightly change its meaning. This normally adds a direction to its meaning. For example you could change the meaning of “walk” to “walk in”.

In English we do this by adding an adverb after the verb. Words like “in”, “down”, “through” or “across”. Often it is also possible to do this by using a different verb, “walk in” could also be “enter”.

If you find the concept of ‘prefixes’ difficult you could just remember each of these verbs. Treating each verb as it’s own word, rather than a set of related verbs. This would be good for learners with a good memory for words. Other learners, who may be more conceptually minded, may choose to remember how all the pre-fixes work. We think it’s best to do a little of both. Once you understand this concept, you might find that you can suddenly decipher a whole lot of Russian verbs, and the language may really open up to you.

Let’s take a look at these prefixes.

в - in
вы - out
до - as far as, reach
за - drop in, stop by
об - around
от - away
пере - across
под - approach
при - arrival
про - through, pass
с - down from
у - from

Now let's see some examples of the prefixes in use. This is how you can use them with the primary motion verb: Ходить / Идти. (Note that Идти becomes йти when used with pre-fixes.)

входить / войти - to go in, to enter
выходить / выйти - to go out, to leave, to exit
всходить / взoйти - to go up, to ascend
доходить / дойти - to get to, to get as far as, to reach
заходить / зайти - to drop in, to stop by
обходить / обойти - to walk around, to bypass
отходить / отойти - to walk away
переходить / перейти - to go across, to turn
подходить / подойти - to approach
приходить / прийти - to arrive, to come
проходить / пройти - to go by, to go past
сходить / сойти - to go down, decend
уходить / уйти - to go from, to leave, depart

OK, now here is the interesting bit: As these new verbs already indicate a definite direction, they can not be multi-directional and they lose the concept of unidirectional or multi-directional that we learnt above. Instead the first word above is the imperfective aspect, and the 2nd is the perfective. (refer lesson 15) So in the present tense you will always use the first of these verbs above.