The aim of the work is to identify similarities and differences in the attributive valence of the German verb of movement "gehen" and the Russian verb "идти" in German and Russian. The subject of the study is the sectors of the manifestation of the attributive valence of the above-mentioned verbs in the cognitive aspect. These verbs are considered only in their direct sense, namely from the point of view of transmitting the expression of a person's movement from one point to another. The attributive valence of verbs of movement was chosen due to its insufficient study in comparative linguistics from the position of cognitive linguistics. In the study, the comparative method was used as the main one; methods of semantic and cognitive analysis were also used. The material of the analyzed examples was German and Russian lexicographic sources. The scientific novelty of this study lies in the fact that it reveals for the first time similar and specific cognitive sectors of the manifestation of the attributive valence of the German verb "gehen" and the Russian verb "идти". As a result of the study, the presence of such sectors of attributive valence as "direction of movement", "type of movement" and "pace of movement" was revealed in the verb "gehen". The analyzed examples of the Russian verb "идти" showed the presence of the following sectors: "time", "direction" and "type of movement", "accomplice of movement", "pace of movement" and mixed cases. As a result of comparative analysis, it was found that in German and Russian there are the following similar sectors of the attributive valence of human movement: "direction", "type" and "pace of movement", and the sectors "direction of movement" and "pace of movement" significantly prevail quantitatively in the analyzed examples. The article also draws conclusions about the peculiarity of the perception of the directional movement of a person in the Russian and German linguistic cultures.