Word
Сенатор говорил с журналистами.
Meaning
The senator spoke with journalists.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Сенатор говорил с журналистами.
говорить
to speak
с
with
журналист
the journalist
сенатор
the senator
Questions & Answers about Сенатор говорил с журналистами.
Why is сенатор in its basic form here?
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.
Why is it говорил and not говорила or говорили?
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
Why is говорил past tense if there is no separate word for did or was?