The primary meaning of the verb садиться/сесть means “to sit down.” It is one of only four verbs in Russian that have a reflexive imperfective and a non-reflexive perfective:

When you sit down on a chair or couch, you express that with на and the accusative case. When you sit down at a table, or at an item placed on the table, you express that with за and the accusative case:

The verb has several other meanings which we will address in the next few entries.

The verb сидеть/посидеть means “to be sitting.”

Some examples:

The sitting meaning of this verb is sometimes de-emphasized quite a bit, and it ends being best translated simply with “to be”:

The verb has an additional meaning of "to be imprisoned" as well.

Сидеть/посидеть is never used in the sense of “to sit down.” For that see tomorrow's entry.

The verb pair слушать/послушать means “to listen,” and it is completely regular in its formation:

In English the verb takes an object after the preposition “to,” but in Russian the thing you listen to appears in the accusative case with no preposition preceding it; that is, the verb takes a direct object:

The verb sometimes has the meaning “to obey,” just as the English verb also carries that shade of meaning:

Sometimes the verb is best translated “to attend” when a lecture or concert is involved:

There are also several stock phrases that make use of this verb, the most common of which is the telephone greeting «Слушаю!» or «Слушаю вас!», both of which are best translated as “Hello.” Last but not least is «Слушайте внимательно!» “Listen attentively!” This is a phrase used by every teacher in every Russian classroom when they want the children's attention.

One other verb that is used to express “to ask” is задавать/задать, literally “to pose.” It is used in conjunction with the noun вопрос, which means question. It is conjugated like this:

The verb combines with the noun вопрос in the accusative case, and the person being queried shows up in the dative case:

The quote by Berkeley is not very well known in Russia and does not yet have a generally accepted translation. It is so well known in the US that it spawns regular parodies, the most famous of which is “If a man speaks in the forest and there is no woman to hear him, is he still wrong?” That one has become so iconic that it is reproduced on t-shirts regularly.

Note: the stress on the perfective past tense forms sometimes varies from the stress here indicated.

The verb pair спрашивать/спросить means “to ask” in the sense of “to ask (a question).” It never means “to ask someone for something.” It is conjugated like this:

The person who is asked the question shows up in the accusative case. The question that is asked most commonly shows up as indirect speech in a separate clause introduced by a comma:

But of course the question clause may also contain direct speech:

The verb is also used if a person answers the phone and wants to know who the caller wants to speak with. Although the phrase essentially means “Who is asking for him/her/them,” in a good translation we will paraphrase it with the standard polite equivalents in English:

One warning about this verb: it cannot be used in conjunction with the noun вопрос, which means a question. That is you cannot say «Он спросил вопрос» in the sense of “He asked a question.” For that you must use the verb задавать/задать, which we will discuss tomorrow.