Thread: садить и сидеть

Expanding a little on iCake's answer, I would summarize the sitting verbs this way:

• сидеть = "to be (unmoving) in a sitting position" [intransitive, and expressing где?, "where"]
• садиться / сесть = "to sit oneself down" [intransitive, but expressing movement: куда?, "to where"]
• сажать / посадить = "to put into a seated position; to help someone sit down; to plant; to imprison" [transitive, and also expressing куда?]

And finally:

• садить = Rather old-fashioned-sounding equivalent of сажать

So, садить is not wrong, but nowadays it's probably better to use сажать in most situations. For instance, I think it's correct to say Стюардесса сажает пассажиров, "The stewardess is directing passengers to their seats."

P.S. сидеть, "to be sitting," does have various perfectives that add different shades of meaning, but it doesn't really have a "neutral" perfective like садиться /сесть and сажать/посадитьdo.

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

For instance, I think it's correct to say Стюардесса сажает пассажиров, "The stewardess is directing passengers to their seats."

Well, it's grammatically correct, but sounds weird in this case. When you say "стюардесса сажает пассажиров" it looks like the passengers do it forced, they are like tomato seeds or prisoners, because "сажать" also means "to put in a prison". As you know, Russian verbs have a lot of prefixes. So, you should use one of them: рассаживать. For instance, "стюардесса рассаживает пассажиров". It means that she directs them. Or "учитель рассадил учеников по местам". "Рассаживать" implies directing.
However, sometimes it can be acceptable, for example, I can imagine a pilot who commands the stewardess "сажай(те) пассажиров", because it's Ok in a colloquial speaking.
When you mean "to get on board", you should use "сажать", because it doesn't imply a specific direction for every person. For example, "работа бортпроводниц - сажать пассажиров на самолет", "мы посадили родителей на автобус".

Also you can use "усаживать", it implies that you help someone to take their seat with caring or politeness (depends on context). For instance, "он усадил своего пожилого отца в кресло", "мама усаживает малыша на стул", "стюардесса сначала усадила пассажиров, а затем села на свое место". Also it can mean that you force someone, like "he made John seat down".

You can work on these verbs, too: осадить/осаживать, пересадить/пересаживать, насадить/насаживать, всадить/всаживать, присадить/присаживать(ся) ("Присаживайтесь, пожалуйста!"), отсадить/отсаживать(ся), обсадить/обсаживать, подсадить/подсаживать(ся) ("Он подсел к девушке на скамейку", "Не подсаживайтесь ко мне!").