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Questions & Answers about Я жду друга до вечера.
What is the overall meaning of the sentence Я жду друга до вечера?
It means "I am waiting for my friend until evening." In this sentence, Я means "I," жду is the first-person singular present form of ждать (to wait), друга is the direct object "friend" expressed in the correct case for an animate noun, and до вечера specifies that the waiting lasts up until evening.
Why is the word друга used instead of друг?
In Russian, the verb ждать requires its object to be in the accusative case. For masculine animate nouns such as друг, the accusative singular form looks the same as the genitive, which is друга. This is why you see друга rather than друг.
Why does the phrase до вечера use вечера instead of вечер?
The preposition до (meaning "until") always governs the genitive case. Since вечер becomes вечера in the genitive singular, the phrase correctly reads as до вечера.
Why doesn’t the Russian verb ждать require a preposition like "for" before друга, as in the English phrase "wait for"?
Unlike English, Russian expresses the relationship between the verb and its object through case endings rather than additional prepositions. The verb ждать links directly with its object in the appropriate case (in this instance, the accusative/genitive form for an animate noun), so no extra word like "for" is needed.
Is the word order in this sentence flexible, and can it be rearranged without changing the core meaning?
Yes, Russian allows for flexible word order. While the standard order here is subject-verb-object followed by a time phrase (Я жду друга до вечера), you could rearrange the sentence (for example, До вечера я жду друга) to emphasize the time frame without changing the basic meaning.
Are there synonyms for жду in Russian, and do they carry any different connotations?
Yes, a common synonym is ожидаю. Both жду and ожидаю express the idea of "waiting" or "expecting," but ожидаю tends to sound a bit more formal or deliberate, while жду is more commonly used in everyday conversation.