Dialogue: At the Market

A market stall is where Russian quantity grammar gets a real workout, and it happens fast. In the space of three short lines you have to make a verb agree with a plural ("how much do the apples cost?"), put a noun into the genitive just because a measure word stands in front of it ("a kilo of apples"), bend that noun a different way because a number governs it ("two kilos"), and fire off a clipped perfective command to order. Each of these is a stumbling block for English speakers, who don't change a noun at all after "a kilo of" or "two". Read the exchange first, then the line-by-line breakdown.

The dialogue

Line by line

— Ско́лько сто́ят я́блоки?

Ско́лько ("how much / how many") is the all-purpose quantity question word. The thing it asks about here — я́блоки ("apples") — is plural, and the verb agrees with it: сто́ят is the 3rd-person plural of сто́ить ("to cost"). If you were asking about one thing, you'd use the singular: Ско́лько сто́ит хлеб? ("How much does the bread cost?"). English uses the same "does" either way; Russian makes the verb match the number of the thing priced.

Note also that я́блоки here is the bare plural in the nominative — it's the subject of "cost". Watch that this is different from the genitive you'll need a moment later: nominative я́блоки (the subject), but genitive я́блок (after a measure word). Same fruit, two cases, depending on the slot.

— Сто рубле́й килогра́мм.

The vendor's reply packs the whole price into three words and shows two quantity rules at once.

Сто рубле́й = "a hundred roubles". The number сто ("100") governs the noun, and large numbers like сто put the counted noun into the genitive plural — hence рубле́й (gen. pl. of рубль), not рубли́. This is the same machinery that gives you пять рубле́й ("five roubles"), де́сять рубле́й ("ten roubles") and so on.

килогра́мм here means "per kilo / a kilo". In a price quote Russian just sets the measure word after the sum, with no preposition: сто рубле́й килогра́мм = "a hundred roubles a kilo" (you'll also hear сто рубле́й за килогра́мм, with за). The килогра́мм in this phrase is the plain nominative singular — "[for] one kilo", the unit the price is quoted per. (Separately, this noun has a colloquial quirk worth knowing: in the genitive plural it often drops the usual -ов ending and stays bare — пять килогра́мм alongside the strict пять килогра́ммов — a pattern shared by грамм and раз "times". That zero-ending genitive plural just happens to look identical to the nominative singular you see here.)

— А они́ сла́дкие?

A quick aside before ordering. они́ ("they") refers back to the apples; сла́дкие ("sweet") is the plural form of the adjective, agreeing with them. There's no verb — Они́ сла́дкие? ("Are they sweet?") is complete on its own, marked as a question by rising intonation. The contrastive а ("and / but") tacks the new question onto the conversation.

— О́чень. Берёте?

О́чень ("very") answers as a one-word fragment — the full "they're very sweet" (Они́ о́чень сла́дкие) is left out because it's obvious. This ellipsis is utterly natural in spoken Russian; padding it out would sound stilted.

Берёте? ("Are you taking [some]?") is the 2nd-person plural present of брать ("to take"), used here as the polite вы-form to mean "will you buy it?" The object ("some") is dropped — again, understood. Russian commerce runs on брать ("to take") far more than on покупа́ть ("to buy") in the moment of the transaction.

— Да, да́йте два килогра́мма, пожа́луйста.

This is the line that does the most grammatical work.

Да́йте is the imperative of дать ("to give") — "give!". Дать is a perfective verb, and the perfective imperative is exactly right here because you want the action done once, completely: hand me the apples. A perfective imperative requests a single, bounded result. The -те ending makes it the polite вы-form (the ты-form is дай); softened by пожа́луйста ("please"), да́йте is the courteous, normal way to order over a counter — brisk but not rude.

два килогра́мма is the number trap. The numeral два ("two", masculine/neuter) — along with три and четы́ре — governs the genitive singular, so "kilogram" appears as килогра́мма (gen. sg.), not the plural килогра́ммы. To an English ear "two kilogram" sounds like a singular, which feels backwards — but that's exactly the rule: after 2, 3, 4 the counted noun is genitive singular. From 5 upward it flips to the genitive plural (пять килогра́ммов).

If you wanted "a kilo of apples", the measure word would itself force the genitive plural onto the fruit: килогра́мм я́блок ("a kilo of apples", я́блок = gen. pl. of я́блоко). Measure words behave like quantifiers — whatever follows them goes genitive. Stack it all and you get два килогра́мма я́блок: два governs килогра́мма (gen. sg.), and килогра́мм governs я́блок (gen. pl.). Two different genitives in one phrase.

— С вас две́сти рубле́й.

С вас… is the fixed cashier's phrase for "from you (is owed)…", literally "from you" (с + genitive вас) — an idiomatic way to state the total. две́сти рубле́й = "two hundred roubles": две́сти ("200") again governs the genitive plural рубле́й. The maths checks out — two kilos at a hundred each — and the genitive plural on рубле́й is the same one we saw in the vendor's first reply.

Register

This is everyday transactional Russian on вы — vendor and customer don't know each other, so the polite plural forms (берёте?, да́йте) are correct. It's polite but efficient: heavy ellipsis (О́чень., dropped objects), the brisk perfective imperative, and the formulaic С вас… are all normal market register, neither cold nor over-formal. Larding it with extra courtesies would actually sound odd in a quick produce sale.

Vocabulary gloss

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• Ско́лько + agreement: the price verb matches the item's number — Ско́лько сто́ят я́блоки? (pl.) vs Ско́лько сто́ит хлеб? (sg.). Watch the stress: сто́ит "costs", стои́т "stands".
• Genitive after measures: a measure word forces the genitive onto what follows — килогра́мм я́блок (gen. pl.), буты́лка воды́ (a bottle of water).
• Numeral government: оди́н → nom.; 2, 3, 4 → gen. sg. (два килогра́мма); 5+ → gen. pl. (пять килогра́ммов, сто рубле́й). No English equivalent — drill it.
• Perfective imperative for a single request: Да́йте…, Покажи́те… — done once, completely; пожа́луйста makes it polite, not curt.
• Market register is polite вы but elliptical and efficient; fragments like О́чень. and С вас две́сти рубле́й are entirely natural.