Усадка зависит от времени сушки.

• Усадка is nominative singular. It is the subject of the sentence.
• зависит is the 3rd person singular present tense of зависеть.
• от is a preposition that requires the genitive.
• времени is genitive singular of время.
• сушки is genitive singular of сушка.

So the structure is basically:

[subject in nominative] + [verb] + от + [genitive phrase]

Because зависеть normally goes with от + genitive.

This is just the standard pattern:

• зависеть от чего? = to depend on what?
• зависеть от погоды = to depend on the weather
• зависеть от цены = to depend on the price
• зависеть от времени = to depend on time

A helpful way to learn this is to memorize the verb together with its pattern:

зависеть от + genitive

Because время comes after от, and от requires the genitive case.

The nominative form is:

• время = time

The genitive singular form is:

• времени

This noun is a little irregular, so it is worth memorizing:

• nominative: время
• genitive: времени

So:

• от времени = from/of time, and with зависеть, effectively depending on time

Because сушки depends on времени in the phrase время сушки.

Russian often uses the genitive after another noun to express relationships like:

• the time of drying
• the color of the car
• the roof of the house

So here:

• время = time
• сушки = of drying

Together:

• время сушки = drying time or literally time of drying

Then the whole phrase becomes:

• от времени сушки = on the drying time

Yes. Russian often expresses this kind of idea with a noun + genitive construction instead of stacking nouns the way English does.

So English:

• drying time

Russian:

• время сушки
• literally: time of drying

This is a very common Russian pattern. Compare:

• скорость ветра = wind speed
• цена товара = product price
• температура воды = water temperature

So время сушки is a normal, natural Russian way to say drying time.

зависит is the present tense, 3rd person singular, from the verb зависеть.

Conjugation:

• я завишу
• ты зависишь
• он/она зависит
• мы зависим
• вы зависите
• они зависят

Here the subject is усадка, which is singular, so the verb is also singular:

• Усадка зависит ...

Because the subject, усадка, is singular.

Russian verbs in the present tense agree with the subject in number (and in the past tense also gender).

Here:

• усадка = singular
• so зависит = singular

If the subject were plural, you would use зависят:

• Показатели зависят от температуры.
• The indicators depend on the temperature.

Yes. Russian word order is more flexible than English word order because the cases show the grammatical relationships.

The neutral order here is:

• Усадка зависит от времени сушки.

But you could also say:

• От времени сушки зависит усадка.

This version puts more focus on от времени сушки.

In many contexts, both are correct. The difference is mainly about emphasis and information structure, not basic meaning.

Because Russian does not have articles like English a/an and the.

So:

• усадка can mean shrinkage, the shrinkage, or sometimes a shrinkage, depending on context.
• время сушки can mean drying time or the drying time, depending on context.

Russian relies on context much more than English does for this.

The stress is:

• уса́дка
• зави́сит
• от
• вре́мени
• су́шки

A rough English-style pronunciation guide:

• oo-SAHT-kah
• za-VEE-sit
• ot
• VRYE-mye-ni
• SOOSH-kee

A few useful notes:

• время starts with a consonant cluster вр-, which can feel tricky for English speakers.
• ш in сушки is like sh in ship, but harder and more retroflex.
• Unstressed vowels are often reduced in natural Russian speech.

Yes. Усадка is often used in technical, industrial, and scientific contexts to mean shrinkage or contraction, especially of materials.

Depending on context, it can refer to things like:

• shrinkage during drying
• shrinkage in manufacturing
• shrinkage of wood, concrete, fabric, clay, etc.

So this sentence sounds quite natural in a technical or scientific register.

No. Even though Russian uses от, you should not copy that literally into English.

Russian:

• зависеть от

English:

• depend on

So the grammar patterns are different across the two languages. This is very common when learning Russian: you should learn the Russian pattern as its own structure, not try to map each word directly onto English.