пожертвовать
“пожертвовать” (pozhertvovat) — to donate in Russian. Verb, level B1. Reshili pozhertvovat dengi na shkolu — "they decided to donate money to the school" — to give to a good cause: money, time, even blood — pozhertvovat krov is said exactly so, from zhertva, the sacrifice. In a live sentence: “Решили пожертвовать деньги на школу” — They decided to donate money to the school. Written with the characters п, о, ж, е, р, т, в, о, в, а, т, ь.
In short
| Written in Russian | пожертвовать |
| Read in Latin letters | pozhertvovat |
| Translation | to donate |
| Part of speech | verb |
| Level | B1 |
Why it looks that way
Reshili pozhertvovat dengi na shkolu — "they decided to donate money to the school" — to give to a good cause: money, time, even blood — pozhertvovat krov is said exactly so, from zhertva, the sacrifice.
A word with a story stays in memory longer than one learned as a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.
In a live sentence
A single word almost never appears alone in conversation. A sentence shows where it fits and what stands next to it.
- Решили пожертвовать деньги на школуReshili pozhertvovat dengi na shkoluThey decided to donate money to the school
How not to forget this word
Reading a word and remembering it are different jobs. A day later, little survives of a single reading — and that is not bad memory, that is how memory works.
- This has been tested on foreign words too. The difference shows up most when you test yourself a few days later rather than straight away.checked many timesKim & Webb, 2022, Language Learning 72(2) · 48 experiments, 3,411 participants, 98 comparisons.
- Recalling beats re-reading. Covering the translation and trying to remember it does more than reading it ten more times.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · 188 experiments, 272 comparisons. g = 0.61; against plain re-reading 0.51, against passive review 0.93.
- An answer you worked out yourself sticks better than one handed to you.checked many timesBertsch et al., 2007, Memory & Cognition 35(2) · 86 studies, 445 comparisons, d = 0.40.
Frequently asked
How do you say “to donate” in Russian?
«пожертвовать», read “pozhertvovat”. In a live sentence: “Решили пожертвовать деньги на школу” — They decided to donate money to the school. Verb, level B1; written with the characters п, о, ж, е, р, т, в, о, в, а, т, ь.
How is “пожертвовать” written in Latin letters?
pozhertvovat. This is a practical spelling — you need it to read aloud and be understood, not to meet an academic standard.
Why does this word look the way it does?
Reshili pozhertvovat dengi na shkolu — "they decided to donate money to the school" — to give to a good cause: money, time, even blood — pozhertvovat krov is said exactly so, from zhertva, the sacrifice. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.