Breakdown of Мой друг учится в университете.
Questions & Answers about Мой друг учится в университете.
In Russian, the verb быть (to be) is normally omitted in the present tense in simple sentences like this.
So instead of saying something like Мой друг есть студент, Russian just says:
- Мой друг студент. – My friend is a student.
- Мой друг учится в университете. – My friend is studying at university.
The verb быть appears in the past and future:
- Мой друг был студентом. – My friend was a student.
- Мой друг будет учиться в университете. – My friend will study at university.
In the present, you usually just put the words together: [subject] + [what they are / what they do].
Russian possessive adjectives agree with the gender and number of the noun:
- мой – my (masculine singular)
- моя – my (feminine singular)
- моё – my (neuter singular)
- мои – my (plural)
The noun друг (friend) is grammatically masculine, so you must use мой:
- мой друг – my friend (male, or grammatically masculine)
- моя подруга – my (female) friend
- моё письмо – my letter
- мои друзья – my friends
Grammatically, друг is masculine, so grammatically it is like “male friend”.
In real usage:
- друг – close friend (often male, but sometimes used generically in mixed or abstract contexts)
- подруга – female friend
Some examples:
- Мой друг учится в университете. – My (male) friend studies at university.
- Моя подруга учится в университете. – My (female) friend studies at university.
- У меня много друзей. – I have many friends. (plural of друг is друзья)
So if you clearly mean a female friend, it’s more natural to say подруга.
Russian has no articles (no words like a, an, the). The ideas of definiteness/indefiniteness are understood from context, not from a separate word.
So:
- Мой друг учится в университете.
can mean, depending on context:
- My friend studies at a university.
- My friend studies at the university.
- My friend goes to university.
You don’t change the Russian sentence; the translation choice in English depends on what you want to emphasize.
Учится comes from the infinitive учиться (to study, to learn somewhere).
- учиться – to study (as a student somewhere)
- учится – he/she/it studies (3rd person singular present)
The -ся ending (written -сь after a vowel) makes the verb reflexive or intransitive. It often means:
- the subject is undergoing the action (not doing it to someone else),
- or the action doesn’t take a direct object.
Compare:
- Он учит русский язык. – He learns/teaches Russian (he acts on Russian).
- Он учится в университете. – He studies at university (he is in the process of being educated there).
So учится = “is studying” / “studies,” and -ся shows it’s not “teaching something to someone,” but rather “being educated / studying (somewhere).”
These three verbs all relate to “learning/studying,” but they’re used differently:
учиться – to study somewhere or in general; to be a student
- Usually answers где? (where?) or кем? (as what?)
- Я учусь в университете. – I study at university.
- Он учится на врача. – He is studying to become a doctor.
учить – to teach someone, or to learn/memorize specific material
- учить кого? чему? – to teach someone something
- учить что? – to learn/memorize something
- Он учит детей. – He teaches children.
- Я учу новые слова. – I’m learning/memorizing new words.
изучать – to study a subject in depth, systematically
- изучать что?
- Она изучает биологию. – She studies biology (as a field).
- Мы изучаем русский язык. – We study the Russian language (as an academic subject).
In your sentence, учится is correct because we’re talking about studying at a university (being a student there), not about what exact subject he is memorizing or teaching.
The preposition в can use different cases, which change the meaning:
- в + Accusative – motion into somewhere (where to?)
- в + Prepositional – location in/at somewhere (where?)
Compare:
- Он идёт в университет. – He is going to the university. (direction; Accusative: университет)
- Он учится в университете. – He studies at the university. (location; Prepositional: университете)
In your sentence, we are talking about where he studies (location), so we must use в + Prepositional → в университете.
Университет is a masculine noun. Nouns in Russian decline – they change their ending depending on the case.
Singular forms of университет:
- Nominative (кто? что?) – университет – university (subject form)
- Genitive (кого? чего?) – университета
- Dative (кому? чему?) – университету
- Accusative (кого? что?) – университет
- Instrumental (с кем? с чем?) – университетом
- Prepositional (о ком? о чём? где?) – университете
The preposition в meaning “in/at” with a static location requires the Prepositional case, so университет → университете:
- в университете – at/in the university.
No. In Russian, you generally must use a preposition to show location. The noun cannot stand alone to mean at or in somewhere.
Correct:
- Мой друг учится в университете. – My friend studies at the university.
Without в, the phrase учится университете is ungrammatical. Russian relies on preposition + case (like в университете, на работе, в школе) to express “at/in” a place.
Yes, Russian word order is fairly flexible, though it affects emphasis.
All of these are grammatically possible:
Мой друг учится в университете.
– Neutral, normal order. Simply states a fact.В университете учится мой друг.
– Emphasizes в университете (at the university), e.g., contrasting with someone who studies elsewhere, or answering “Where does your friend study?”Мой друг в университете учится.
– A bit unusual, but can emphasize учится (that he is indeed studying there, not, say, working).
Meaning-wise, they all essentially say the same thing: My friend studies at the university; the difference is mostly nuance of what’s highlighted in the sentence.
In Russian, the simple present of an imperfective verb like учиться can mean both:
a general, regular action:
- Мой друг учится в университете. – My friend studies at university / is a university student.
an action happening right now, if the context makes that clear:
- Сейчас мой друг учится в университете. – Right now my friend is studying at the university.
There is no separate continuous tense (like “is studying”) in Russian. Context (words like сейчас – now, обычно – usually, etc.) tells you whether it’s “right now” or “in general.”
By default, without extra context, this sentence is most naturally understood as a general fact: he is a university student.
Grammatically, yes, but it changes the feel:
- Мой друг учится в университете. – My friend studies at the university. (a specific friend)
- Друг учится в университете. – (Some) friend studies at the university.
Without мой, it can sound:
- very context-dependent (e.g., in a story where “the friend” is already known),
- more like you’re speaking about “a friend” in a generic way.
In normal conversation, when you first mention this person, you would almost always say Мой друг…
Approximate pronunciation with stress marks:
- Мой друг у́чится в университе́те.
Rough Latin transcription:
- Moy druk Úchitsya v universitéte.
Notes:
- Мой – ой like “oy” in boy.
- друг – final г is devoiced: sounds like [к] → [druk].
- у́чится – stress on у́; чи like “chee” → [ˈut͡ɕɪt͡sə].
- в – often very short, almost like English v attached to the next word.
- университе́те – stress on те́: у-ни-вер-си-ТЕ-тe.
In IPA (approximate):
- [moj druk ˈut͡ɕɪt͡sə v ʊnʲɪvʲɪrˈsʲetʲɪtʲe].