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Questions & Answers about Цветы цветут весной.
What grammatical case is весной, and why is it used here?
Весной is in the instrumental case. In Russian, the instrumental is often used to indicate a recurring time when something happens (seasons, parts of the day, days of the week). So цветы цветут весной literally means “flowers bloom during spring” with the time expressed by the instrumental.
Why don’t we say в весне or в весну for “in spring”?
- В весне (prepositional) would mean “about spring” (“in the context of spring”), not “during spring.”
- В весну (accusative) would suggest a single event “into spring” or “at some point in spring,” rather than a habitual or general fact.
For regular, seasonal occurrences we use the instrumental: весной.
Why is цветут used instead of a form like цветают?
The verb is цвести (to bloom). Its present-tense conjugation is irregular:
• я цвету
• ты цветёшь
• он/она цветёт
• мы цветём
• вы цветёте
• они цветут
So the third-person plural is цветут, not цветают.
Could we change the word order to Весной цветы цветут? What difference would that make?
Yes, you can say Весной цветы цветут. Russian has fairly free word order. Placing весной at the beginning shifts the emphasis to when the flowers bloom (“It’s in spring that flowers bloom”).
Why is цветы in the plural form here?
Using the plural nominative (цветы) expresses a general statement about all flowers: “flowers (in general) bloom in spring.” If you refer to a single flower, you’d say Цветок цветёт весной (“A flower blooms in spring”).
Where is the stress in цветут, and why does it matter?
The stress falls on the second syllable: цветУт. Correct stress is important in Russian because misplacing it can make your word hard to understand or even change its meaning.
Can we use another verb to express blooming? For example, расти (“to grow”)?
You could say Цветы растут весной (“flowers grow in spring”), but that means something different: it focuses on growth rather than blooming. Цвести specifically means “to produce flowers” or “to be in bloom.”