The meaning of 'делай' and the dative form of отец

[nominals.livejournal.com]

What does делай and делайте mean? Is it a command stating, "Do it."?
Also, what is the dative form of отец?

Comments

[gera.livejournal.com]

1) Do (smth). Usually they are followed by smth.
2) Отцу.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

1) It is.
2) Отцу

[russiandude.livejournal.com]

The above responce is perfectly correct, I would just like to add that that form of the russian verb to do is usually used in questions.

For example:
Что он/а делает? = What is s/he doing?

When used as a command, one usually uses сделай.

For example:
Сделай что нибудь! = Do something!

I can think of one situation where one might use делай in a valid way to achieve a different meaning from сделай as a command.

Example:
Делай как сказано. vs Сделай как сказано.

"Do like it was told vs [Go] Do like it was told." If you can put a "go" before the command, implying that it should be done in the future, then you likely want сделай. Otherwise, you can likely use делай.

сделай can also be used to describe things done in the past in a different way from делай.

For example:
Я сделал это. = I have done (made is also possible, depending on the context) this [thing/job/etc]. I forget what the grammatical tense is called, but this is an action in the past that have been finished in the past.
Я делал это. = I did this [action]. I have done this action in the past for some indeterminate amount of time.

Hope this is clear and helps a bit.

[constpd.livejournal.com]

И. отец
Р. отца
Д. отцу
В. отца
Т. отцом
П. (об) отце