Breakdown of Чистая одежда лежит в шкафу.
в
in
лежать
to lie
чистый
clean
шкаф
the wardrobe
одежда
the clothes
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Questions & Answers about Чистая одежда лежит в шкафу.
Why is одежда singular here while English uses the plural clothes?
Одежда is a collective (mass) noun in Russian. It names garments as a whole and always takes singular agreement. In English clothes is inherently plural, but in Russian you’d keep одежда singular. To talk about individual items you’d use countable words like рубашка (shirt) or брюки (trousers).
Why does the adjective чистая end in -ая?
Adjectives in Russian agree with the noun in gender, number and case. Одéжда is feminine, singular, nominative, so the adjective takes the feminine singular nominative ending -ая.
What case is в шкафу, and why is the ending -у instead of -е?
This is the so-called second prepositional (locative) case, used after в or на to indicate location with certain nouns (often monosyllabic masculine): в лесу, на мосту, в шкафу. The regular prepositional ending -е (as in в шкафе) also exists but the -у form is idiomatic here.
Can I also say в шкафе, or is that wrong?
Both в шкафе (standard prepositional) and в шкафу (second prepositional) are correct and mean the same. The -у ending is common with certain location words, but using -е is perfectly acceptable.
Why is the verb лежит singular? Could it ever be лежат in this sentence?
Verbs agree with the grammatical number of their subject. Since чистая одежда is singular, the verb is лежит. If you changed the subject to a plural noun (e.g. рубашки), you’d say лежат.
Why use лежит instead of a more general verb like находится?
Лежать means to lie (to rest horizontally), so it emphasizes the position of the clothes. Находиться is a neutral to be located and doesn’t convey the same nuance of “lying inside.”
Is the word order fixed? Could I say В шкафу лежит чистая одежда?
Russian word order is fairly flexible. В шкафу лежит чистая одежда is perfectly natural and puts the focus on location first; the original order is equally correct.
Why isn’t there an article like the or a before чистая одежда?
Russian does not have articles. Definiteness or indefiniteness is inferred from context or added with demonstratives. For example, эта чистая одежда would be “these/the clean clothes.”