Let's think about the verb ложиться/лечь. The first thing to notice is that it is one of only four verbs in Russian where the imperfective is reflexive and the perfective is not.¹ It conjugates like this:

The primary meaning of the verb is “to lie” in the sense of “to lie down.” The first thing to notice is that the thing you lie down on appears in the accusative case after the preposition на:

It's also possible to lie under something под + accusative:

We often find this verb in is in combination with спать. The resulting phrase means “to go to bed.”

¹ You get extra points if you can name the three other verbs. Lots of people can name two others, but if you get three others, you are special. Add a comment to this post to prove your prowess!

² The verb “to lie” in the sense of “to lie down” is currently shifting in English. The old standard for the past is to say “Yesterday I lay on the couch after lunch because my head hurt” and the standard for the infinitive can be seen in “My head hurts, and I need to lie down.” In modern American English now people often say “Yesterday I laid down on the couch after lunch” and “My head hurts, and I need to lay down.” This verb is one my personal pet peeves in life, and I'm going to defend the old literary norm either to my dying die or to the day my sister finally admits she has been saying it wrong all these years, whichever comes first.

Death seems to be a-comin’ awful fast.

Let's think about the verb готовить/приготовить, which conjugates like this:

The verb pair готовить/приготовить has a couple meanings, the first of which is “to prepare.” The person/thing who is being prepared appears in the accusative case, and the thing for which they are being prepared appears in the dative case after the preposition к:

The second meaning of the verb is “to cook”:

Today let's think about the verb отвечать/ответить. Notice that it's imperfective form is a first conjugation verb, and its perfective form is a second conjugation verb:

The first meaning of the verb is “to answer, respond”:

If you answer a person, the person appears in the dative case:

If you answer a question, then вопрос is the object of the preposition на in the accusative case:

If you combine both the person to whom you are responding and the question, then you have two options. The person can appear in the dative case outside of the на phrase, or you can turn the person into a possessor of the question inside the на phrase:

The verb pair покупать/купить means “to buy, purchase”. Notice that the imperfective has the prefix по- and the perfective does not.

The thing purchased goes in the accusative case. In English the person for whom something is purchased can be either an indirect object or the object of the preposition “for”:

Likewise in Russian the person for whom something is purchased can either an indirect object (dative case) or the object of the preposition для, which governs the genitive case:

Some sample sentences:

You will recall that one of the differences between imperfective and perfective verbs is that perfective verbs are used when the result of the action is in focus, and you use the imperfective when the result is not in focus. Thus the following dialogs are both possible:

«Я джинсы покупал» is best translated “I shopped for jeans” because the speaker is not specifying whether there was actually a result to his shopping, whereas «Я джинсы купил» means the speaker actually made the purchase, so “I bought jeans” is the best translation.

Food prices have actually risen quite a bit recently in Russia (source|mirror). The BBC has been tracking the crisis in world food prices since July of 2008, and Moscow is one of the cities they are tracking. You can follow their coverage here.

* In English we usually discuss potatoes in the plural. Russians usually use the singular word картошка which can mean either "a potato" or "potatoes" generically.

One of the words that means 'to eat' is кушать. Theoretically one can say мы кушали пиццу 'we ate pizza.' But this word is not one that usually comes from the lips of a grown man. It's a word used by Mama and Gramma when calling people to the table by saying идите кушать, or they might ask if you want to eat by saying вы кушать будете? But even when Mama and Gramma say it there is something domestic, affectionate or cuteish about it.

There is also an old fashioned language rule that says you should never use the verb кушать in the first person.

If you want to ask if someone wants to eat, the most neutral way is to say Будешь есть/завтракать/обедать/ужинать? Cruder versions are Будешь жрать? Будешь хавать? (The хавать version is a Belarusian influence.)