Breakdown of По-моему, ты слишком пересолил этот суп.
ты
you (singular)
этот
this [f: эта, n: это]
суп
soup
по-моему
in my opinion
Questions & Answers about По-моему, ты слишком пересолил этот суп.
How does the prefix пере- change the meaning of the verb here?
The base verb is солить (to salt). Adding the prefix пере- creates the perfective verb пересолить, which means to do the action to an excessive, often negative degree—in this case, to oversalt. This is a very productive prefix, meaning you can add it to many verbs to show an action was done too much, like переплатить (to overpay) or переоценить (to overestimate).
Why use слишком (too much) if пересолил already means "oversalted"? Isn't that redundant?
Yes, strictly speaking, it is redundant! However, combining слишком with a пере- verb is incredibly common in everyday, conversational Russian. It acts as an intensifier that adds extra emotional emphasis, similar to saying "you oversalted it way too much" in English.
How would I say the exact opposite: "you didn't put enough salt in this soup"?
You would use the deficit prefix недо- and say ты недосолил этот суп. Just like пере-, the prefix недо- can be attached directly to the base verb to indicate that an action was performed insufficiently or didn't reach the required norm.
Why is По-моему hyphenated, and why is there a comma after it?