Learn Hardcore Russian: На сцене выступает молодой журналист, а в зале внимательно слушают студенты. - A young journalist is performing on stage, and in the hall the students are listening attentively.

на сцене literally means “on (the) stage”.
The stage is thought of as a surface you are on, so Russian uses на.
в сцене would mean “in a (theatrical) scene” (as in a scene of a play or movie), not the physical stage.

The ending changes because of the prepositional case:

Dictionary form: сцена (feminine, nominative singular)
After на (in the meaning “on, at” with location), we use the prepositional case:
- на сцене – “on (the) stage”

So сцена → сцене is just noun declension in the prepositional singular.

What exactly does выступает mean, and why use it instead of говорит?

The verb выступать means:

to perform,
to give a speech,
to appear before an audience.

So выступает молодой журналист is best understood as:

“a young journalist is speaking/performing/giving a talk (on stage)”.

Nuances:

говорить = “to speak, to talk” in general, no built‑in idea of performance:
- На сцене говорит молодой журналист – “a young journalist is speaking on stage” (neutral, just “saying words”).
выступать adds the idea of a public performance or speech:
- It suggests a more formal or organized situation: a lecture, a report, a speech, a performance.

So the author chose выступает to highlight that the journalist is appearing before an audience as a speaker/performer, not just casually talking.

In на сцене выступает молодой журналист, why does the verb выступает come before молодой журналист? Could we also say молодой журналист выступает на сцене?

Both word orders are grammatically correct:

На сцене выступает молодой журналист.
На сцене молодой журналист выступает.
Молодой журналист выступает на сцене.

Russian word order is flexible. It is used to manage emphasis and information structure, not basic grammar like in English.

Version in the sentence: На сцене выступает молодой журналист.
- Starts with the location (на сцене) – “On the stage…”
- Then the action (выступает) – “there is appearing / is performing…”
- Finally introduces new information (молодой журналист).
- This feels like a stage direction or a scene description: “On the stage, a young journalist is performing.”
Молодой журналист выступает на сцене.
- More neutral, closer to English SVO:
- “A young journalist is performing on the stage.”
- Slightly more focus on who is doing the action (the journalist).

So yes, you can say молодой журналист выступает на сцене, but the original word order highlights the scene setup: first the place, then the action, then the person.

What is happening grammatically in молодой журналист? Why молодой, not молодая or something else?

Молодой журналист is an adjective + noun phrase with gender and case agreement:

журналист is a masculine noun in nominative singular (dictionary form).
The adjective молодой (“young”) must:
- match the gender (masculine),
- the number (singular),
- and the case (nominative, because it’s the subject).

Adjective endings:

Masculine nominative singular: usually -ый / -ий / -ой
- новый журналист – “new journalist”
- умный журналист – “smart journalist”
- молодой журналист – “young journalist”

So молодой журналист literally = “young (masc.) journalist (masc.)”.

For a clearly female journalist you would usually say:

молодая журналистка – “a young (female) journalist”

In modern usage, журналист can refer to a woman too; in that case some people also say:

молодая журналист (treating журналист as a common‑gender noun in context)

But in your sentence, with молодой журналист, the natural reading is that the journalist is male.

Why is the conjunction а used here (..., а в зале ...) instead of и?

Both а and и can be translated as “and”, but they are not the same:

и = simple “and”, just adding information.
а = “and / but / while / whereas”, usually showing contrast or a different aspect of the situation.

In the sentence:

На сцене выступает молодой журналист, а в зале внимательно слушают студенты.

the idea is:

On the stage – one thing is happening (the journalist is speaking),
whereas / while in the hall – something different is happening (the students are listening).

So а highlights the difference between the two places and two activities, like:

“On the stage, a young journalist is performing, while in the hall the students are listening attentively.”

Why is it в зале and not в зал or в зала? What case is this?

В зале is prepositional case after the preposition в in the meaning “in / inside (a place)”:

Dictionary form: зал (masculine, nominative singular, “hall”)
Location with в → use prepositional case:
- в зале – “in the hall”

Declension:

Nominative: зал
Prepositional (singular): в зале

We do not say:

в зал – this is accusative, and normally means motion into the hall:
- Мы зашли в зал. – “We went into the hall.”
в зала – wrong form in standard Russian for this meaning.

So:

в зал – direction (into the hall),
в зале – location (in the hall).

In the second clause, why is the verb слушают plural, while выступает is singular?

The verb form always agrees with its subject in number and person:

First clause:
- Subject: молодой журналист – singular (one person)
- Verb: выступает – 3rd person singular
- → журналист выступает
Second clause:
- Subject: студенты – plural (more than one student)
- Verb: слушают – 3rd person plural
- → студенты слушают

So:

выступает (singular) matches журналист (singular),
слушают (plural) matches студенты (plural).

In в зале внимательно слушают студенты, why does the verb слушают come before студенты? Could we say в зале студенты внимательно слушают?

Yes, you can say:

В зале студенты внимательно слушают.

That is perfectly correct.

Russian allows verb–subject order quite freely. The choice affects emphasis:

… слушают студенты.
- Focus often falls on студенты at the end.
- It can feel like: “it’s the students who are (the ones) listening.”
- A bit like English: “In the hall, listening attentively are the students.”
… студенты слушают.
- More neutral, straightforward SVO:
- “In the hall, the students are listening attentively.”

The given version:

В зале внимательно слушают студенты.
- Starts with place (в зале),
- then describes the action (внимательно слушают),
- and only then reveals who is doing it (студенты),
- which mirrors the structure of the first clause and creates a nice parallel:
  - На сцене выступает молодой журналист, а в зале внимательно слушают студенты.

Why is there no они in the second clause? Could we say … а в зале они внимательно слушают?

Russian often drops subject pronouns like я, ты, он, она, они when the subject is clear from the verb ending or context.

In слушают, the ending -ют shows:

3rd person plural: “they listen / are listening”

Then the noun студенты appears and identifies who “they” are.

You could say:

… а в зале они внимательно слушают.
- “and in the hall they are listening attentively.”

This is grammatical, but:

It becomes less parallel to the first clause, where the subject is given as a noun phrase (молодой журналист).
It also sounds a bit more “pronoun-heavy” than Russian usually needs.

The original:

… а в зале внимательно слушают студенты
- is natural, compact, and stylistically better here.

Why are the verbs выступает and слушают in the imperfective aspect? What would change with выступит or послушают?

Russian has two aspects:

Imperfective: ongoing, repeated, process, or general.
Perfective: single, completed action or result.

In the sentence:

выступает (from выступать) – imperfective
слушают (from слушать) – imperfective

They describe what is happening right now, as a process:

“is performing” / “is giving a talk”
“are listening”

If we used perfective forms:

выступит – “(will) perform / will finish the performance / will speak successfully (once)”
послушают – “(will) listen for a while / will have listened”

Examples:

На сцене выступит молодой журналист.
- Focus on the fact of a future performance, more like a program announcement.
В зале студенты послушают.
- Emphasis on them listening as a completed event, not on the ongoing process.

In your sentence the point is to paint the scene right now, so the imperfective present (выступает, слушают) is exactly right.

What is внимательно grammatically? Why is it not внимательные?

Внимательно is an adverb meaning “attentively, carefully”.

It describes how the students are listening, i.e. it modifies the verb слушают.

Adjectives vs adverbs:

внимательный студент – “an attentive student” (adjective, agrees with студент)
внимательные студенты – “attentive students” (adjective, plural)
внимательно слушают – “(they) listen attentively” (adverb, no agreement)

Adverbs in Russian typically end in -о or -е and do not change for gender, number, or case:

громко говорить – “to speak loudly”
быстро читать – “to read quickly”
внимательно слушать – “to listen attentively”

So внимательно is correctly invariable as an adverb, not внимательные, which would be an adjective and would need a noun (e.g. внимательные студенты).

Could this sentence be reordered or rephrased in other natural ways in Russian without changing the basic meaning?

Yes. Russian word order is flexible. Here are some natural variants with roughly the same meaning and slightly different emphasis:

Молодой журналист выступает на сцене, а студенты внимательно слушают в зале.
- More neutral SVO word order in both clauses.
На сцене молодой журналист выступает, а в зале студенты внимательно слушают.
- Keeps the “location first” structure, but switches to subject–verb in each clause.
Молодой журналист выступает на сцене, а в зале внимательно слушают студенты.
- Only the first clause is changed; second stays the same.

All of these are grammatical and natural. The original version:

На сцене выступает молодой журналист, а в зале внимательно слушают студенты.

sounds especially good because:

both clauses start with a location (на сцене / в зале),
then verb, then subject,
giving a nice parallel rhythm and drawing a balanced contrast between what is happening on the stage and in the hall.