Дети поднимаются по широкой лестнице.

The children are going up the wide staircase.

Breakdown of Дети поднимаются по широкой лестнице.

• ребёнок: the child
• лестница: the staircase
• по: up
• широкий: wide
• подниматься: to go up

Questions & Answers about Дети поднимаются по широкой лестнице.

What is the best English translation of Дети поднимаются по широкой лестнице? Does it mean “are going up” or “go up”?

The most natural translation is:

• “The children are going up the wide staircase.”

Grammatically, Russian has only one present tense, so поднимаются can correspond to both:

• “go up” (habitual, general fact)
• “are going up” (right now, in progress)

Context decides which one is meant. Without context, English speakers usually imagine a “right now” situation: are going up.

Why is the verb поднимаются and not just поднимают?

Because Russian uses a reflexive form here:

• Infinitive: подниматься – to go up, to climb (oneself)
• Non‑reflexive infinitive: поднимать – to lift, to raise (something/someone else)

So:

• Дети поднимаются = The children go up / are climbing (themselves).
• Дети поднимают чемоданы. = The children are lifting the suitcases.

The ending -ются shows:

• 3rd person plural (they)
• present tense
• reflexive (-ся)

What exactly does the reflexive ending -ся in поднимаются do?

The -ся in поднимаются marks the verb as reflexive / intransitive. In this verb, it means:

• The action is done by the subject to itself / on itself: the children themselves are moving upward.
• There is no direct object like “stairs” in the accusative. You don’t lift something, you go up (yourself).

Compare:

• поднимать мяч – to lift the ball (direct object: мяч)
• подниматься по лестнице – to go up the stairs (no direct object; motion of the subject)

What is the infinitive and aspect of поднимаются? How is it different from поднимутся or поднялись?

• поднимаются – 3rd person plural, present tense of подниматься, imperfective.
• Infinitive: подниматься (imperfective) – to be going up / to climb (process).
• Perfective partner: подняться – to go up, to climb and reach the top / finish.

So:

• Дети поднимаются по лестнице. – They are in the process of going up.
• Дети поднимутся по лестнице. – They will go up (and reach the top). Future, perfective.
• Дети поднялись по лестнице. – They (have) went up / climbed up. Completed past action.

Why do we use the preposition по here? Could we say на лестнице instead?

по with a surface or route often means “along / up / over (following a path)”.

• по лестнице literally: along the staircase / on the staircase (moving along it) → understood as up the staircase.

на лестнице means “on the staircase” (location, not movement):

• Дети стоят на лестнице. – The children are standing on the stairs.

So:

• Дети поднимаются по лестнице. – They are moving along/up the stairs.
• Дети стоят на лестнице. – They are located on the stairs.

Why is it по широкой лестнице and not по широкую лестницу?

Because the preposition по here takes the dative case:

• по чему? – along what? on what (as a route)? → по лестнице (dative)

So we need the dative forms:

• широкой – feminine, singular, dative of широкий
• лестнице – feminine, singular, dative of лестница

That’s why it is:

• по широкой лестнице (dative)
  not
• по широкую лестницу (accusative – wrong in this sense).

How do широкой and лестнице agree with each other grammatically?

They agree in:

• Gender: both feminine (лестница is feminine)
• Number: both singular
• Case: both dative (because of по)

Forms:

• широкий (masc. nom. sg.) → широкой (fem. dat. sg.)
• лестница (fem. nom. sg.) → лестнице (fem. dat. sg.)

So широкой лестнице is a correctly agreeing adjective + noun phrase in the dative case.

What case is дети, and why isn’t it детей?

• Дети is nominative plural.
• The nominative case is used for the subject of the sentence – the “doer” of the action.

Детей is genitive plural and would be used for different functions (like after some prepositions, or to express quantity, or possession, etc.), but not as the subject here.

So:

• Дети поднимаются… – The children are going up… (subject in nominative)
• У детей игрушки. – The children have toys. (genitive after у)

Why is the plural дети and not something like ребёнки?

Russian has an irregular pair:

• ребёнок – one child
• дети – children (suppletive plural; the stem changes completely)

There is no plural *ребёнки in standard Russian for “children” in this sense. You must memorize ребёнок → дети as an irregular singular/plural pair.

Can we change the word order, for example: По широкой лестнице поднимаются дети? Does the meaning change?

Yes, you can say:

• По широкой лестнице поднимаются дети.

The basic meaning stays the same: The children are going up the wide staircase.

The difference is in emphasis:

• Дети поднимаются по широкой лестнице. – more neutral; slight focus on who is doing it (the children).
• По широкой лестнице поднимаются дети. – brings по широкой лестнице to the front, emphasizing the route: It is along the wide staircase that the children are going up.

Russian word order is flexible; changes usually affect focus more than basic meaning.

Could I replace поднимаются with идут and say Дети идут по широкой лестнице? Is it the same?

You can say:

• Дети идут по широкой лестнице. – The children are walking on/up the wide staircase.

The difference in nuance:

• подниматься focuses on the upward motion: to go upwards, to climb.
• идти just means to go / walk, without specifically highlighting “up”.

Context will usually still make it clear they are going up, but подниматься makes the idea of climbing or ascending more explicit.

Why doesn’t Russian use anything like “the” before дети or лестнице?

Russian has no articles (a, an, the). Definiteness or indefiniteness is understood from context, word order, or additional words, not from articles.

So Дети поднимаются по широкой лестнице can mean:

• The children are going up the wide staircase.
• The children are going up a wide staircase.
• Children go up a wide staircase. (in a more general context)

English must choose articles; Russian does not mark them at all.