Сенатор говорил с журналистами.

Because сенатор is the subject of the sentence — the person doing the action. In Russian, the subject is usually in the nominative case, which is the dictionary form.

• сенатор = senator
• nominative singular masculine

So in Сенатор говорил с журналистами, сенатор is the one who was speaking.

The verb in the past tense agrees with the subject in gender and number.

Here the subject is сенатор, which is:

• singular
• masculine

So the correct past-tense form is говорил.

Compare:

• он говорил = he was speaking / he spoke
• она говорила = she was speaking / she spoke
• они говорили = they were speaking / they spoke

In Russian, the past tense is usually built directly into the verb form itself. You do not need a separate helper verb like did or was.

So:

• говорить = to speak / to talk
• говорил = spoke / was speaking / used to speak, depending on context

Russian past-tense verbs often look like:

• verb stem + -л for masculine singular
• -ла for feminine singular
• -ло for neuter singular
• -ли for plural

Because the preposition с meaning with usually requires the instrumental case.

The noun журналисты is the nominative plural form meaning journalists.
In the instrumental plural, it becomes журналистами.

So:

• журналисты = journalists (nominative plural)
• с журналистами = with journalists (instrumental plural)

This is a very common pattern in Russian:

• с другом = with a friend
• с друзьями = with friends
• с журналистами = with journalists

Because after с meaning with, Russian normally uses the instrumental case, not the genitive or nominative.

So the correct form is:

• с журналистами = with journalists

The other forms would be wrong here:

• журналисты = nominative plural
• журналистов = genitive/accusative plural in some contexts
• журналистами = instrumental plural

A learner often has to memorize which case each preposition takes, and с = with is one that commonly takes the instrumental.

It can mean any of those, depending on context.

That is because говорил is the imperfective past form of говорить. Imperfective verbs often describe:

• an ongoing action: was speaking
• a repeated/habitual action: used to speak
• sometimes a simple past action in a general sense: spoke / talked

So this sentence could be understood as:

• The senator was speaking with journalists
• The senator spoke with journalists

The exact English translation depends on the situation.

Because говорить and сказать do not mean exactly the same thing.

• говорить = to speak / to talk / to say in a general or ongoing sense
• сказать = to say, usually focusing on a completed utterance or a specific thing said

In this sentence, говорил с журналистами suggests he was talking with journalists / he spoke with journalists. It focuses on the conversation or speaking activity.

If you used сказал, it would sound more like he said something specific, often with a direct object or quoted speech.

So:

• Сенатор говорил с журналистами. = The senator was talking with journalists.
• Сенатор сказал журналистам... = The senator said to the journalists...

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

So сенатор can mean:

• a senator
• the senator

The listener figures it out from context.

In this sentence, English would often translate it as the senator, but Russian itself does not mark that difference with a separate word.

Yes. Russian word order is more flexible than English because case endings show grammatical roles.

The neutral order here is:

• Сенатор говорил с журналистами.

But you could also say:

• С журналистами говорил сенатор.
• Говорил сенатор с журналистами.

These versions are grammatically possible, but they may shift the emphasis or sound more marked.

Very roughly:

• Сенатор говорил с журналистами. = neutral
• С журналистами говорил сенатор. = emphasizes with journalists
• Говорил сенатор с журналистами. = can sound more narrative or stylistically marked

The stress is:

• сенАтор
• говорИл
• с журналИстами

A simple pronunciation guide:

• Сенатор ≈ sye-NA-tər
• говорил ≈ guh-va-REEL
• с журналистами ≈ s zhoor-na-LEE-sta-mi

One small detail: the preposition с is pronounced together with the next word, so с журналистами flows as one unit.

It is plural.

You can tell because the ending -ами is a common instrumental plural ending.

So:

• журналистом = with a journalist / instrumental singular
• журналистами = with journalists / instrumental plural

That means the sentence refers to the senator speaking with more than one journalist.