Цветы цветут весной.

The flowers bloom in spring.

Breakdown of Цветы цветут весной.

• цветок: the flower
• весной: in spring
• цвести: to bloom

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?