"Отрежь мне маленький кусок, пожалуйста."

Translation: Cut me a small piece, please.

[jtd742]

"cut off a small piece for me, please" wasn't accepted.

[va-diim]

It's not as natural-sounding as "cut a small piece for me, please."

[jtd742]

Depends on the dialect of English I guess. It sounds natural in my dialect (I'm a native English speaker).

[va-diim]

I agree with you. Over here, "cut off" doesn't sound wrong, it just sounds precise and methodical, "cut a piece" just sounds casual and common.

[PolyJack]

Just to tag onto this.

To me it depends what's being cut. You could say "cut me a piece of cake", without the 'off'. But you'd say "cut me off a piece of sellotape" or whatever. Just as an example.

[Bobboski]

What's the difference between Нарезать and Отрежать?

[va-diim]

-Отрезать- [typo] is when you cut something completely off of something, for example отрезать голову, "to cut off the head."

Нарезать is to systematically cut up or cut apart something, usually into slices. For example, нарезать помидор, "to cut up a tomato into slices."

[servolock]

DL is not allowing "off."

[geneven]

You would certainly say "cut off his head" and not simply "cut his head".

[Wentris]

cut off me a little piece please

[mightypotatoe]

Your sentence implies that the piece is being cut off of your own body, which is not what the Russian sentence says.

[Wentris]

maybe "cut off a little piece for me, please" will be better?

[mightypotatoe]

That would work, along with "cut a small/little piece off for me, please"

[Wentris]

thanks a lot)

[va-diim]

You don't need the word "off" here. It's implied. It's common to "cut me a piece of cake, please."

[hydraslahir]

Suppose that I am writing a beautiful story about being a pie. I(as the pie) say "cut a piece of me". How would I say that ? Отрежь меня маленький (...) ? What if I wanted be completly cut ? "Cut me in 8 parts". Thanks ^.^

[GervasioRa2]

Хорошая история для детей ^_^

[va-diim]

Отрежь от меня маленький кусок. Разрежь меня на восьми кусках.

[NicolaiZou]

You may not need "off" but it still works. If you had a job as a translator you make it understandable and natural for the non Russian speaker. It doesnt change the meaning one bit.

[va-diim]

I agree with that. The only contentious part is that отрежь is the second-person imperative tense of "to cut off." It's specifying in Russian to cut a piece off of something.

If the verb was "to cut," then in Russian the sentence would've been,

Порежь мне маленький кусок, пожалуйста.

[Jay239607]

Cut for me" was wrong, but why? I'm not a native English speaker

[va-diim]

Because it sounds like a non-native English speaker. :-)

You could say, "cut a small piece for me, please," but that would translate as, "отрежь маленький кусок для меня," a little different.

[Ann55075]

Отрежь sounds weird. Especially female voice. As for male - we do not say ЖЬ on the end of the verbs these days, It was correct pronounsation some 60 years ago. I think I'll say smth like отреш here Or отрежмне