When I see verbs like почитать vs прочитать I know I'm looking at something which needs to be considered as a special case; a lot of verbs have one imperfective form and a few perfectives
I think in english language role of russian prefixes is played by "on/off/by/with/around" post-particles.
There is some system in their usage... For example, IMHO, "off"-particle often acts similar to prefix "от-". But there is no strict rules and you should check meanings of new combination in dictionaries.