Breakdown of Наша команда проиграла игру.
команда
the team
наш
our
игра
the game
проиграть
to lose a game or contest (perfective)
Questions & Answers about Наша команда проиграла игру.
Why is it наша, not наш?
Because наша has to agree with команда.
In Russian, possessive words like наш (our) change form for gender, number, and case, much like adjectives do. Since команда is:
- feminine
- singular
- nominative
the correct form is наша.
So:
- наш = masculine singular
- наша = feminine singular
- наше = neuter singular
- наши = plural
Because команда is feminine, you say наша команда.
Why is команда feminine? A team is made of people of any gender.
Because Russian grammatical gender is about the noun, not the real-life sex of the people involved.
Команда is a grammatically feminine noun. That is why other words agreeing with it also take feminine forms:
- наша команда
- команда проиграла
This does not mean the team is female. It just means the noun команда belongs to the feminine grammatical class.
A big clue is the ending -а. Many Russian nouns ending in -а / -я are feminine.
Why does the verb end in -а: проиграла?