Arriving & Leaving: Motion Prefixes
You own four motion verbs. Prefixes turn them into forty. Five little syllables — при, у, вы, в, за — and suddenly people in your sentences arrive, leave, step out, walk in and drop by.
при- — Arrival
у- — Away
The mirror of при-:
вы- and в- — Out and In
за- — Dropping By
Я зашёл в магазин по дороге домой.
I dropped by the shop on the way home.
Note: за- is a quick stop on a longer journey — the friendliest prefix.
Note the irregular bases: шёл/шла hide inside пришёл, ушла, вышел, зашла. You learned them with the weather (шёл дождь) — now they walk through doors.
Common Mistakes
- пришёл for vehicles. Arrived by train → приехал. On foot → пришёл.
- Mixing вышел and ушёл. Вышел = stepped out, coming back; ушёл = left, gone.
- Заходи taken literally. «Заходи!» at a doorway isn't a route instruction — it's "come on in!"
What You Can Do Now
You can narrate everyone's comings and goings — who arrived, who left, who stepped out and who dropped by — which is, if you think about it, most of what any household ever discusses.