Breakdown of Сегодня вечером статья уже проверена редактором и готова к печати.
Questions & Answers about Сегодня вечером статья уже проверена редактором и готова к печати.
«Сегодня вечером» literally means “this evening (today)”.
- «сегодня» = today
- «вечером» = in the evening / this evening
You can say only one of them, but the nuances differ:
- «Сегодня статья уже проверена…» – Today the article has already been checked… (sometime during the day, not necessarily evening)
- «Вечером статья уже проверена…» – In the evening the article is already checked… (describes what is true in the evening in general, or on some particular evening, but not tied clearly to “today”)
«Сегодня вечером» pins it down to this evening (of today). It’s a very natural time expression in Russian: сегодня утром, сегодня днём, сегодня ночью, etc.
In the sentence «Сегодня вечером статья уже проверена редактором и готова к печати», «статья» is the subject of the sentence, so it must be in the nominative singular feminine:
- статья (nom. sg.) – the article
The predicate is expressed by short-form participle/adjective:
- проверена (short passive participle, fem. sg.)
- готова (short-form adjective, fem. sg.)
This structure is similar to English “The article is checked and ready for printing”. The article is what has the properties (checked, ready), so it is the grammatical subject → nominative.
«Проверена» is a short-form passive participle formed from проверить (to check). It must agree with статья:
- статья – feminine, singular
- short-form feminine singular of проверенный is проверена
So: статья проверена = the article is (has been) checked.
Why not «проверено»?
- проверено is neuter, so it would agree with neuter nouns like письмо проверено (the letter is checked). With статья (fem.) that would be a grammatical error.
Why not «проверенная»?
- проверенная is the full participle. It usually works like an attributive adjective in front of a noun:
- проверенная редактором статья – the article checked by the editor
- In the original sentence we need a predicate (“the article is checked”), so Russian prefers the short form:
- статья проверена (редактором) – the article is checked (by the editor)
So:
- short form (проверена, готова) → predicate: is checked, is ready
- full form (проверенная, готовая) → attribute before noun: a checked article, a ready article
In Russian, in the present tense, the verb «быть» (to be) is usually omitted in such sentences:
- статья проверена
≈ the article is checked (literally “article checked”)
Adding есть (is) here would sound unnatural and overly stressed, almost like you’re contradicting someone.
If you need to talk about past or future, then a form of «быть» is used:
- статья была проверена редактором – the article was checked by the editor
- статья будет проверена редактором – the article will be checked by the editor
In the original sentence, the time reference comes from context (сегодня вечером) and from the resultative meaning, so no explicit “is” is needed; Russian simply uses the short participles as a predicate.
«Статья уже проверена» describes a current state that is the result of a completed action:
- Literally: The article is already in a checked state.
- Semantically, it’s very close to English “has already been checked” or “is already checked”.
With «сегодня вечером», there are two common readings:
It’s already evening now:
- As of this evening, the article has already been checked…
You’re talking about a situation this evening (maybe said earlier in the day), with a kind of “by that time” sense from context:
- By this evening, the article will already be checked…
Russian often uses this resultative state (“is already checked”) instead of a perfect tense like English has been checked. The exact time nuance (“by this evening” vs. “this evening now”) depends on context.
«Редактором» (instrumental singular of редактор) is used because in a passive construction the doer of the action is typically in the instrumental:
- статья проверена редактором
– The article has been checked by the editor.
Pattern:
- книга написана автором – The book was written by the author.
- письмо отправлено секретарём – The letter was sent by the secretary.
So here, редактором answers “by whom?” in a passive sentence → instrumental case.
Both can describe nearly the same event, but they differ in focus and grammar:
Passive: статья проверена редактором
- Focus on the article and its state/result.
- Equivalent to: The article has been checked by the editor.
- Subject = статья (article).
Active: редактор проверил статью
- Focus on the editor and the completed action.
- Equivalent to: The editor checked the article.
- Subject = редактор (editor).
Use passive when you care more about what’s going on with the article (is it done? ready?) and active when you care about what the editor did.
«Готова» is the short form of the adjective готовый (ready), feminine singular.
- статья готова – the article is ready (predicate, describes state)
- готовая статья – a ready article (full form, attribute before the noun)
In this sentence, готова is part of the predicate: it tells us the state of the article. So Russian uses the short form.
Same pattern as with проверена:
- статья проверена и готова – The article is checked and ready.
- проверенная и готовая статья – A checked and ready article.
Both are possible, but they have slightly different typical uses.
к печати (dative) – literally “towards printing”, idiomatically “for printing / to be printed” in the sense of ready to be sent to print.
- готов(а) к печати is a fixed phrase in publishing: ready to go to the printer.
для печати (genitive) – “for printing” in a more general purpose sense:
- бумага для печати – paper for printing
- формат для печати – a format for printing
In the context of an article that has passed editing and is technically ready to be printed, «готова к печати» is the standard idiomatic choice.
In Russian, word order is fairly flexible, but some orders are more natural.
Original:
- Сегодня вечером статья уже проверена редактором и готова к печати.
– Neutral: first time frame (сегодня вечером), then the statement about the article.
If you say:
- Статья уже проверена редактором и готова к печати сегодня вечером.
this sounds like “The article is already checked and ready for printing this evening” – but it can be slightly confusing, because «сегодня вечером» is far from «статья» and can be read as modifying only «готова к печати» (“ready for printing this evening, but not earlier”), which may or may not be what you intend.
More natural alternatives:
- Статья уже проверена редактором и сегодня вечером готова к печати.
- К сегодняшнему вечеру статья уже проверена редактором и готова к печати.
The original word order (time phrase first) is completely natural and clear.
«Проверена» comes from the perfective verb проверить. This emphasizes that the checking is complete and we now see the result (the article is in a checked state).
If you use the imperfective проверять, you’d get forms like:
- статья проверяется редактором – the article is being checked by the editor (process, ongoing)
- редактор проверял статью – the editor was checking/used to check the article (past ongoing / repeated action)
So:
- проверена (perfective short passive participle) → result, completed action, current state
- проверяется (imperfective present passive) → process, ongoing action
In the original sentence we want to say it’s already done and the article is ready, so perfective result is the right choice.
Yes, «уже» is very close to “already”:
- статья уже проверена – the article is already checked / has already been checked
- It emphasizes that this result is earlier than someone might expect, or earlier than some reference point.
You can place «уже» differently for nuance:
- статья уже проверена – neutral, common
- уже статья проверена – more marked, sounds unusual here; could sound like emphasis or poetic / stylized.
In normal speech, «уже» goes before the participle/adjective (проверена, готова) or after the subject, as in the original.