Мой друг улыбается в парке.

Breakdown of Мой друг улыбается в парке.

друг
the friend
мой
my
парк
the park
в
in
улыбаться
to smile
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Questions & Answers about Мой друг улыбается в парке.

What does Мой друг mean, and how does the possessive adjective мой agree with друг?
Мой друг translates to “my friend”. The adjective мой (“my”) agrees in gender, number, and case with друг. Since друг is a masculine singular noun in the nominative case (acting as the subject of the sentence), мой is used in its masculine singular nominative form.
Why does the verb appear as улыбается with the ending -ется, and what does this indicate?
The ending -ется shows that the verb is conjugated for the third person singular in the present tense and also indicates the verb is reflexive. The base verb улыбаться means “to smile,” and its reflexive form implies that the subject is performing the action on itself.
Why is the noun парк rendered as парке in the phrase в парке?
In Russian, the preposition в (“in”) requires the following noun to be in the prepositional case when indicating a location. Парк becomes парке in the prepositional case, which is the form used to denote where the action takes place.
Which grammatical cases are used in the sentence, and why are they applied here?

The sentence employs two primary cases: • Nominative case for Мой друг, since it is the subject of the sentence. • Prepositional case for парк (yielding парке), used after the preposition в to indicate location.

Is the verb улыбается describing a current action or a habitual/general fact, and how can we tell?
The form улыбается is in the present tense, which in Russian can describe both actions happening right now and habitual or general states. In this sentence—translated as “My friend smiles in the park”—the context serves to state a general fact. Russian often relies on context to distinguish whether the action is a momentary occurrence or a habitual one, rather than using different verb tenses as strictly as English does.