Learn Hardcore Russian: Путь до дома был долгим.

путь is a masculine noun meaning “way,” “route,” or “journey.” In this sentence it serves as the grammatical subject (“The way to the house…”), so it takes the nominative case.

Why is до used with дома, and why is дома in the genitive?

The preposition до always requires the genitive case and expresses movement or reference “up to” a certain point. Here до дома literally means “up to the house/home.” Because до governs the genitive, дом becomes дома.

How is до дома different from the adverb домой?

до дома (preposition + genitive) emphasizes the endpoint: “as far as the house/home.”
домой is an adverb meaning “towards home” or “homeward.”

Example:
• Я шёл до дома весь день. (I walked up to the house all day – focus on reaching that endpoint.)
• Я шёл домой весь день. (I was walking home all day – focus on direction.)

Why is the verb был necessary here, and why is it masculine singular?

In the past tense, Russian normally uses the full forms of быть (был/была/было/были) as a copula to link subject and predicate. You cannot omit it in the past tense (unlike present-tense “есть,” which can be dropped).
был agrees in gender and number with the subject путь (masculine singular), so we use был, not была (fem.) or было (neuter).

Why is the adjective долгим in the instrumental case instead of the nominative долгий?

Traditional Russian grammar often puts predicate adjectives after быть in the instrumental case to describe a state or characteristic. Here, долгим (instrumental singular) describes the quality of путь. Using nominative (долгий) can sometimes appear in colloquial speech, but долгим is the standard literary form.

Why not use the adverb долго instead of the adjective долгим?

долго is an adverb; it modifies verbs (answers “how did it happen?”), not nouns.
долгим is an adjective; it modifies the noun путь (answers “what kind of way?”).

If you wanted to say “It took a long time,” you would use долго in a different construction: Это длилось долго or Это заняло много времени.

What’s the difference between путь and дорога in this context?

дорога generally refers to the physical road or street you travel on.
путь can mean both the physical route and the more abstract idea of a journey or course.

In Путь до дома был долгим, путь emphasizes the idea of the journey itself. You could also say Дорога до дома была долгой, focusing more on the actual road.

Can we change the word order to До дома путь был долгим?

Yes, Russian word order is flexible. Placing До дома first shifts emphasis onto the endpoint: “As for the way to the house, it was long.” However, the neutral, most common order is Путь до дома был долгим (subject → modifier → verb → predicate).