How One Russian Root -ЖИ- Gives You Dozens of Words

Have you ever wondered how Russians manage to have so many words related to life and even some that sound similar It's all thanks to our tiny yet mighty root ЖИ In this video we're going to explore its entire family and by the end you'll understand how this small ЖИ can completely transform your Russian We're going to explore 22 Russian words with the root ЖИ and you're going to learn them Welcome to One Root Many Words The first group of words is known as the foundation of life Here I introduce you to the central idea of this root and its key terms The first one obviously is the main verb ЖИТЬ meaning to live It's important to know how to talk about where you live The second one connected word to it LIFE life Life ends with a soft sign in Russian but it is a feminine noun That's why we can say life is beautiful The next one is an adjective describing life or something living It can take on many other forms of course depending on how it's used but these four are the main ones Let's say something like this living plant And the last word in this group is INHABITANT INHABITANT A person who resides in that location It may refer to living in a country or within a city For instance I can say I am a resident of Krasnodar It's the feminine form If you were a man you'd say ЖИТЕЛЬ Like ОН ЖИТЕЛЬ МОСКВЫ So let's recap what we have here To live is to have life To be alive and to be a resident of a city or a country TO BE ALIVE TO BE A RESIDENT AFTER TO BE WE USE THE INSTRUMENTAL CASE SO I HAVE PUT THESE TWO WORDS IN THE INSTRUMENTAL FORM Then the second group is a place of life Let's now explore all the words related to how and where we live The word number 5 is ЖИЛЬЁ – HOUSING The next one a very similar word—HOUSING Also HOUSING – DWELLING Number 7 is residential Don't confuse it with live — residential Residential — that's for housing You can always create the opposite by adding НЕ The next one is to stay or live Staying has only one aspect just like living If you've noticed so ПОЖИВАТЬ – TO FAIR But we usually use it in the question HOW'S IT GOING HOW ARE YOU You can always say How are you or How are you doing The next one is OLD Also can have other forms like OLDER WOMAN OLDER FEMALE OLDER PEOPLE Middle-aged elderly The next one number 10 – TENANT This third group will be the most challenging because I'll show you verbs like ЖИТЬ with various prefixes and each prefix will change the meaning entirely A little bit of the word's meaning But they all still share this root ЖИ So the first word is ПРОЖИВАТЬ – ПРОЖИТЬ Don't confuse it with "to stay" (as in lodging) So to live means literally to spend your life residing somewhere For example we might say The next one a great verb – УЖИВАТЬСЯ – УЖИТЬСЯ to get along with someone The next interesting verb – ЗАЖИВАТЬ – ЗАЖИТЬ It has two meanings The first one – to begin living to start your life And the second one interestingly for us means to heal—just like we talk about wounds that are healing That's the same verb—ЗАЖИТЬ So two examples He didn't truly begin living until he was fifty Before that perhaps many struggles and obstacles had prevented him from living fully Now he finally began to live o begin living rather than merely existing The next one is destined to survive Next is to come to life The next one number 16 – НАЖИВАТЬ – НАЖИТЬ to acquire something during your life And the next one also an interesting verb – ПЕРЕЖИВАТЬ – ПЕРЕЖИТЬ Only the imperfective aspect can mean to worry But not to survive only to worry about something Like DON'T WORRY – but to endure or to survive can also mean to go through or to live through To endure a hardship to survive someone or something or to go through an experience in your life Just as we endured many hardships in life Just as we experienced we lived through And the final part finally some additional words—also very intriguing ones Number 18 – LIVELY I absolutely love this word Tenacious resilient nearly impossible to kill Next is ANIMAL Animal also derives from the same root ЖИ A dog is a domestic animal The next one is LIFE and the equivalent for the slang term LIFE Life – life We use it when we want to express that it's something real Like if someone is telling you a story and you want to say Yeah I feel that—it's relatable to my life like a true story In Russian we say ЖИЗНЕНО – ЖИЗО The next one – ЖИВОТ – surprisingly also comes from ЖИ ЖИВОТ means belly or stomach And the final word finally—ЖИВОПИСЬ Also likely an unexpected term for you but ЖИВОПИСЬ means painting art Now let's take a look at all these words you've just learned And you can be proud of yourself and amazed at how many words we can create from this small root ЖИ And I want to let you know that I didn’t include every word derived from this root because there are truly a great many of them What other words with this root do you know Share them in the comments And which other root would you like to explore with me Let me know in the comments Thank you so much for watching Subscribe to my channel and learn Russian with me Bye