У меня светлая спальня с большим окном.

I have a bright bedroom with a large window.

Breakdown of У меня светлая спальня с большим окном.

• я: I
• с: with
• окно: the window
• большой: large
• спальня: the bedroom
• светлый: bright

Questions & Answers about У меня светлая спальня с большим окном.

What does У меня literally mean in this context and how does it express possession?

Literally, у means “at” or “by,” and меня is the genitive form of “I.” Together they form a fixed construction у меня that literally reads “at me” but actually means “I have.” In Russian you don’t say “I have” with a verb; you use у + [person in genitive] + [thing in nominative] to show possession.

Why is there no verb like есть (“to have” or “there is”) in the sentence?

In Russian, the verb есть (“to be” or “there is/are”) is usually omitted in the present tense. So instead of saying У меня есть светлая спальня, learners often drop есть and simply say У меня светлая спальня. The meaning stays the same: “I have a bright bedroom.”

Why does светлая end with -ая?

Adjectives in Russian agree with the noun they modify in gender, number, and case. Here спальня (“bedroom”) is feminine, singular, and in the nominative case. The nominative feminine singular ending for a hard-stem adjective is -ая, so “bright” becomes светлая.

What case is спальня in and why?

Спальня is in the nominative case. In the construction У меня + [thing], the thing you possess is always in the nominative. You could think of it as the “subject” or more precisely the “nominative complement” of that possessive phrase.

Why is с большим окном in the instrumental case, and why does большим end in -им?

The preposition с when it means “with” always takes the instrumental case. Both the adjective большой (“big”) and the noun окно (“window”) must go into the instrumental singular. For a neuter noun like окно, the instrumental ending is -ом, so окно → окном. The corresponding instrumental ending for hard-stem adjectives in neuter is -им, so большой → большим.

Why are there no definite or indefinite articles (like “a” or “the”)?

Russian does not have articles. Whether a noun is definite (“the”) or indefinite (“a”) is inferred from context or other words (like demonstratives: эта спальня “this bedroom” or possessives: моя спальня “my bedroom”). In У меня светлая спальня, it simply means “I have a bright bedroom,” without specifying further.