What is the difference between “просить” and “спрашивать”?
Как вежливо попросить открыть дверь
A1 Russian listening practice · Standard Russian · Curated for beginners
English “ask” is two verbs in Russian. Просить / попросить is to ask for something, a request: вежливо попроси, “ask nicely.” Спрашивать / спросить is to ask a question: спроси, сколько стоит, “ask how much it costs.” If you want someone to do something, it’s просить; if you want information, it’s спрашивать.
Пожалуйста comes from the same politeness toolkit: открой дверь, пожалуйста is the polite version of the bare дверь открой. Прошу on its own also means “please / go ahead,” as when inviting someone in. The clip is a politeness test: дверь открой gets no reaction until it becomes открой дверь, пожалуйста.
Vocabulary frequency
How common is the vocabulary in this A1 Russian listening practice listening practice?
General Russian frequency
Spoken Russian frequency
Words above this video’s level
Quick glosses for vocabulary that goes beyond this video’s A1 level.
Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · OpenSubtitles 2018 (HermitDave) (spoken). Buckets approximate; exact ranks not stored.