Breakdown of Когда дети играют вместе, они весёлые и совсем не выглядят грустными.
Questions & Answers about Когда дети играют вместе, они весёлые и совсем не выглядят грустными.
Because each adjective is linked to a different verb and follows different case rules.
они весёлые
Here the verb быть (есть = to be) is simply omitted, as it usually is in the present tense:
они (есть) весёлые = they are cheerful.
After быть in this meaning, the complement takes the nominative case, so we get весёлые.они … не выглядят грустными
The second part uses the verb выглядеть (to look / to appear).
With verbs like быть, стать, казаться, выглядеть etc., Russian very often uses the instrumental case to describe what someone is / seems / looks like:- Он выглядит уставшим. – He looks tired.
- Она кажется больной. – She seems ill.
So:
- весёлые – nominative plural (predicate after to be).
- грустными – instrumental plural (predicate after to look, appear).
That’s why the endings are different even though both adjectives describe the same children.
All three patterns exist, but they’re not equally natural here and they have slightly different nuances.
они совсем не выглядят грустными (original)
- Standard, neutral, good textbook Russian.
- Focuses on their state/quality as people: they don’t appear to be sad.
они совсем не выглядят грустные (nominative)
- Grammatically possible and heard in speech, but more colloquial / less standard.
- Many teachers and textbooks prefer the instrumental (грустными) after выглядеть when you describe someone’s state.
они совсем не выглядят грустно (adverb)
- грустно here is an adverb: sadly.
- Focus on the impression / manner: they don’t look sad (in the way they appear), without directly calling them “sad people”.
- Often used about external appearance: Он выглядит странно. – He looks strange(ly).
For a learner, совсем не выглядят грустными is the safest and most standard choice in this context.
Yes, you can, and it’s quite natural:
- Они весёлые и совсем не грустные.
= They are cheerful and not at all sad.
The difference is nuance:
они весёлые и совсем не грустные
States their emotional state as a fact.они весёлые и совсем не выглядят грустными
Emphasises how they seem from the outside: they don’t look sad.
Both are correct; the original version just adds the idea of outward appearance.
Russian has long and short adjective forms:
- Long form: весёлые
- Short form: веселы
In modern Russian:
Long forms (весёлый, весёлые) are the default; they’re used most of the time, including in predicate position:
- Дети весёлые. – The children are cheerful.
Short forms (весёл, весела, веселы) are:
- mainly used in the predicate (after to be implicitly);
- more bookish, stylistic or poetic, especially in the plural;
- much less common in everyday speech for adjectives like весёлый.
So:
- Дети весёлые. – the normal spoken version.
- Дети веселы. – correct, but sounds more formal / literary.
That’s why the sentence uses весёлые: it sounds neutral and natural.
Here когда with the present tense expresses a repeated / typical situation, so in English it’s best understood as “when(ever)”:
- Когда дети играют вместе, они весёлые…
≈ Whenever children play together, they are cheerful…
About если:
- если дети играют вместе, они весёлые…
= If the children play together, they are cheerful…
This sounds more conditional / hypothetical (“if it happens that they play together…”), while когда sounds like a regular pattern.
So both are grammatically possible, but когда is more natural here because we’re describing what usually happens, not a condition in a logical rule.
Aspect is key:
- играют – imperfective: ongoing, repeated, or process-focused action.
- сыграют – perfective: one-time, completed action (“will finish playing / will have played”).
In this sentence we mean a repeated / general situation:
- When(ever) children play together, they are cheerful…
So we need the imperfective present играют.
If we said:
- Когда дети сыграют вместе, они будут весёлыми.
this would mean something like:
- When the children (once) have finished playing together, they will be cheerful.
That’s a very different, more one-off, future result meaning, which doesn’t fit the idea of a general truth.
Because когда дети играют вместе is a subordinate clause (a “when”-clause), and они весёлые и совсем не выглядят грустными is the main clause.
In Russian, a clause introduced by когда is separated from the main clause by a comma:
- Когда дети играют вместе, они весёлые…
- Они весёлые…, когда дети играют вместе.
So the comma marks the boundary between the time clause and the main statement.
You can omit они, and many native speakers would still understand it correctly, because the verb выглядят is 3rd person plural and clearly refers back to дети.
However:
Когда дети играют вместе, они весёлые и совсем не выглядят грустными.
– fully explicit, clear, and neutral.Когда дети играют вместе, весёлые и совсем не выглядят грустными.
– grammatically possible, but feels more elliptical / informal, and for a learner it may be confusing because the subject is not visible.
In careful written Russian, keeping они here is preferable.
Yes, you can:
- Когда дети играют вместе, …
- Когда дети вместе играют, …
Both are grammatically correct and mean essentially the same.
Nuance:
- играют вместе – the most neutral word order.
- вместе играют – slightly more emphasis on “together”, as if contrasting:
- When children play together (and not separately / with phones, etc.), they are cheerful…
But the difference is very small; both are fine.
совсем is an intensifier.
не выглядят грустными
= they don’t look sad (a plain negation).совсем не выглядят грустными
≈ they don’t look sad at all / they really don’t look sad.
It emphasises the complete absence of that quality and often implies a contrast with what one might expect.вообще не выглядят грустными
Also close to not at all, but can sound a bit more colloquial / emotional:- Они вообще не выглядят грустными. – They don’t look sad at all, like, really not.
So совсем не here is a strong but neutral way to say not at all.
Russian has an irregular (suppletive) plural here:
- Singular: ребёнок – a child
- Plural: дети – children
There is also ребята:
- ребята – “kids / guys / lads”, more informal, often about slightly older children or teenagers, or just a friendly group:
- Ребята, пойдём гулять! – Guys / kids, let’s go for a walk!
ребёнки does exist but:
- it’s not standard for children in normal speech;
- it appears mostly in baby-talk, dialects, or joking contexts.
So the normal neutral word for “children” in the plural is дети, which is why the sentence uses Когда дети играют вместе….