Мой брат очень умный и быстро понимает новые правила.

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Breakdown of Мой брат очень умный и быстро понимает новые правила.

• новый: new
• и: and
• брат: the brother

Questions & Answers about Мой брат очень умный и быстро понимает новые правила.

Why is it мой брат, not моя брат?

In Russian, possessive pronouns agree in gender with the noun they modify.

• брат (brother) is a masculine noun.
• The masculine form of my is мой.
• The feminine form would be моя, but that’s used with feminine nouns (like моя сестра – my sister).

So you must say мой брат, because брат is masculine.

What case is брат in, and why?

Брат is in the nominative singular case.

• The nominative case is used mainly for:
  • the subject of the sentence (the doer of the action),
  • or for a noun that is simply being described.

In this sentence, мой брат is the one who is smart and understands rules, so it’s the subject → nominative case.

Where is the verb “is”? Why isn’t there a word like есть in the sentence?