Я распечатал несколько отчётов и склеил их скотчем.

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Breakdown of Я распечатал несколько отчётов и склеил их скотчем.

• и: and
• несколько: several
• отчёт: the report
• их: them
• распечатать: to print out
• склеить: to glue
• скотч: the Scotch tape

Questions & Answers about Я распечатал несколько отчётов и склеил их скотчем.

What does распечатал mean, and how is it different from печатал or напечатал?

распечатал is the past‐tense, perfective form of распечатывать, meaning “to print out” (i.e. produce a hard copy). Key distinctions:

• печатать (imperfective) – “to print” or “to be printing” (ongoing)
• распечатывать (imperfective) – “to be printing out”
• распечатать (perfective) – “to print out” (completed action)
• напечатать – can mean “to type up” or “to print” in older/publishing contexts, but for printer output распечатать is more common

Thus Я распечатал emphasizes that you finished printing the reports.

Why is отчётов in the genitive plural instead of nominative?

The quantifier несколько (“several”) always requires the following noun to be in the genitive plural. That’s why we say несколько отчётов (“several reports”) rather than несколько отчёты.

Why is их used before скотчем, and what does it refer to?

их is the accusative‐plural pronoun “them,” referring back to отчётов. The second verb склеил needs a direct object, so instead of repeating отчёты, we use их to avoid redundancy: “I glued them (the reports) with tape.”

Why is скотчем in the instrumental case, and why is there no preposition?

The instrumental case (ending –ем) expresses the instrument or means by which an action is done. скотчем literally means “with tape.” No preposition is needed—this is the standard way to say “do something by/with [tool]” (e.g. резать ножом – “to cut with a knife”).

Could the word order be changed to склеил скотчем их, and would that sound natural?

Russian word order is flexible, but putting the pronoun before the instrument is more neutral: склеил их скотчем. Saying склеил скотчем их is grammatically correct but sounds marked or poetic, as if you’re stressing скотчем.

What’s the difference between склеить and приклеить?

• склеить – “to glue or tape two separate items together” (e.g. tape pages to each other)
• приклеить – “to stick something onto another surface” (e.g. glue a stamp onto an envelope)

How do I pronounce отчётов, and why is ё used here instead of е?

отчётов is pronounced [aht-CHYOH-tuhf], with the stress on ё (“yo”). In Russian orthography ё always indicates the /jo/ sound and is typically stressed. In less formal prints you might see отчетов, but properly the vowel is ё when that sound is meant.