We kind of do the same thing, only in the form of prefixes (podać, wydać, zdać, zadać, oddać, poddać, nadać, przydać etc. and on and on it goes). Ultimately it boils down to the same thing - little syllabic bits altering the meaning of the verb.

Yes, It's exactly the same in German. So I guess I don't agree with this comment thread at all - It's just learning vocabulary. I never felt like this is a specific problem when learning English. I much more agree with the article: Spelling + pronunciation is just fubar and the greatest annoyance.

You are right, didn't realize we do the same in most Slavic languages and it's common in German too. It just always seemed to me that it's much more common in English. But I have no numbers to support that, so I might be completely wrong.

I managed to learn the pronunciation and phrasal verbs, but prepositions still get me from time to time...

> The only effective way of learning them is to submerge yourself in the language by listening to plenty of audiobooks or moving abroad where English is spoken natively.

That's the only way to learn the quirks and idioms of any language really.