Будний день иногда бывает долгим.

to be

Breakdown of Будний день иногда бывает долгим.

• долгий: long
• иногда: sometimes
• будний день: the weekday

Questions & Answers about Будний день иногда бывает долгим.

Why are there no articles like the or a before будний день?

Russian does not use definite or indefinite articles. Instead, context, word order, and optional demonstratives (e.g., этот, каждый) convey whether something is “the” or “a.”

What does будний mean, and how is it different from рабочий?

будний (from будни, “weekdays”) means “weekday” as opposed to weekend.
рабочий means “working” and typically describes the work itself or the time you spend working.
– будний день = “weekday”
– рабочий день = “working day” or “the period you’re at work”

Why is день in the nominative case here?

день is the grammatical subject of the sentence (“Будний день … бывает долгим”), so it must be in the nominative singular.

Why is бывает used instead of есть or является?

– бывает is the present‐tense form of the imperfective verb бывать, often used for habitual or general observations (“sometimes is/turns out to be”).
– есть (the copula “is”) is usually omitted in Russian present‐tense statements.
– является (“is/constitutes”) is more formal and typically requires a noun predicate (and often sounds bookish).