Библиотека находится недалеко от дома.

The library is not far from the house.

Breakdown of Библиотека находится недалеко от дома.

• дом: the house
• находиться: to be located
• библиотека: the library
• от: from
• недалеко: not far

Questions & Answers about Библиотека находится недалеко от дома.

What does находится mean in this sentence, and why is it used?

Находится is a reflexive verb that means “is located” or “lies”. In Russian, the verb находиться is commonly used to describe the location of something. Unlike English, where we often use the verb to be (as in “is located”), Russian frequently conveys location directly with находится without needing an additional form of быть in the present tense.

What is the role of недалеко от дома in the sentence?

Недалеко от дома is an adverbial phrase that indicates distance. Недалеко means “not far”, and when paired with от дома (“from the house”), it tells us that the library is situated a short distance away from the house. This phrase functions similarly to how we express proximity in English.

What case is used in от дома, and why?

In the phrase от дома, the noun дом is put into its genitive form дома because the preposition от requires the noun that follows to be in the genitive case. This usage is standard in Russian to express the starting point or source of a spatial relation, in this case indicating the house from which the library is not far.

Why is the verb находится conjugated in the third person singular?

The verb находится is in the third person singular form because its subject, библиотека (library), is a singular noun. In Russian, verbs must agree with their subjects in both number and gender. Since библиотека is feminine singular, the correct conjugation of находиться in this context is находится.

Why is there no explicit verb equivalent to “to be” in the sentence?

In Russian, the present tense of the verb быть (to be) is typically omitted. This means that instead of saying something like “The library is located…”, Russian forms the sentence with just находится to imply existence and location. The absence of an explicit “is” is a common feature of Russian grammar when describing states or locations in the present tense.

Can the word order in this sentence be rearranged without changing its meaning?

Yes, Russian word order is quite flexible due to its reliance on case endings to indicate grammatical relationships. For example, “Недалеко от дома находится библиотека” is an equally correct construction that emphasizes the distance before naming the subject. Rearranging the sentence will not change its meaning, though it might subtly shift the emphasis on different parts of the sentence.