На улице стоит большое здание.

There is a large building on the street.

Breakdown of На улице стоит большое здание.

• стоять: to stand
• на: on
• улица: the street
• большой: large
• здание: the building

Questions & Answers about На улице стоит большое здание.

Why is the verb стоит used here and what exactly does it mean?

стоит is the 3rd-person singular present form of стоять (“to stand”). Instead of the simple copula “to be,” which Russian omits in the present tense, стоит is a full verb describing the building’s physical posture or position. So На улице стоит большое здание literally means “On the street a big building stands,” emphasizing that the building is standing there.

Why is улице in this form and what case is it?

улице is the prepositional singular form of улица (“street”). When you use the preposition на to indicate location, the noun takes the prepositional case. Thus на улице = “on the street” (location).

Why do we say на улице instead of в улице?

Russian uses на with open or surface-like locations (streets, squares, fields) to mean “on.” На улице is the natural way to say “out on the street.” Using в улице would suggest being physically inside an enclosed street, which sounds odd in Russian.

Why is большое ending in -ое, and how does it agree with здание?

большое is the neuter nominative singular form of the adjective большой (“big”). The noun здание is neuter and in the nominative singular (it’s the subject of стоит), so the adjective must match it in gender, number, and case, giving большое здание.

How do we know здание is the subject, and what is its gender?

здание ends in -ие, a common neuter ending, so it’s a neuter noun. It appears in the nominative case (it performs the action “stands”), making it the sentence’s subject.

Can we omit стоит and just say На улице большое здание? How would the meaning change?

Yes. На улице большое здание is grammatical and sounds like an existential statement: “On the street (there is) a big building.” Omitting стоит makes it more like a neutral description or headline. Including стоит adds the nuance that the building physically stands there.

Where is the stress in здание, and how is it pronounced?

The stress is on the first syllable: ЗДа-ни-е. A rough phonetic guide is ZDAH-nee-yeh. Note the д is somewhat softened because it precedes н.

How can I ask “Where is the big building?” or “Where does it stand?” in Russian?

You can say: • Где стоит большое здание?
• Где находится большое здание?
Both mean “Where is the big building located?” with the first literally “Where stands the big building?” and the second more formally “Where is the big building found?”