Breakdown of Учитель объясняет строение вселенной.
Questions & Answers about Учитель объясняет строение вселенной.
Учитель is masculine and here it is in the nominative singular form, because it is the subject of the sentence – the one doing the action.
- Nominative singular: учитель – teacher
- Genitive singular: учителя – of the teacher
- Nominative plural: учителя́ – teachers
Even though a teacher can be male or female in reality, учитель is grammatically masculine. For a specifically female teacher, Russian also has учительница (feminine).
Объясняет is:
- Present tense
- Imperfective aspect
- 3rd person singular (he/she/it)
Imperfective present in Russian usually covers both:
- English simple present: “The teacher explains…”
- English present continuous: “The teacher is explaining…”
So Учитель объясняет строение вселенной can mean either “The teacher explains the structure of the universe (in general)” or “The teacher is explaining the structure of the universe (right now),” depending on context.
The aspect pair is:
- объяснять (imperfective) – to explain (process, repeated, habitual)
- объяснить (perfective) – to explain (as a single completed action)
From that:
Present (only imperfective):
- он объясняет – he explains / is explaining
Past:
- он объяснял – he was explaining / used to explain
- он объяснил – he explained (completed, result)
Future:
- он будет объяснять – he will be explaining / will explain (process)
- он объяснит – he will explain (as one completed event)
Строение is:
- Neuter
- Singular
- Accusative, used as the direct object of the verb объяснять.
For neuter nouns ending in -е or -о, the nominative and accusative singular look the same. So строение could be either nominative or accusative; here it’s accusative because it’s what is being explained.
Literally, строение comes from the verb строить (to build) and means structure, composition, arrangement (how something is put together), not “construction work.”
Вселенной is genitive singular of вселенная.
The pattern here is:
- строение чего? – the structure of what? → вселенной
So строение вселенной literally means “the structure of the universe”. In Russian, when one noun defines another like this (structure of something), the second noun usually goes into the genitive case.
Вселенная is a regular feminine noun ending in -а:
- Nominative: вселенная – the universe (subject)
- Genitive: вселенной – of the universe
- Dative: вселенной – to/for the universe
- Accusative: вселенную
- Instrumental: вселенной / вселенною
- Prepositional: вселенной – in/about the universe
In the sentence, вселенной is genitive.
- Учитель – nominative singular masculine (subject)
- объясняет – verb, present tense, 3rd person singular
- строение – accusative singular neuter (direct object: what is explained)
- вселенной – genitive singular feminine (depends on строение – structure of the universe)
With объяснять / объяснить, the typical pattern is:
- объяснять что? кому?
- explain what? – accusative
- explain to whom? – dative
Examples:
- Учитель объясняет строение вселенной ученикам.
The teacher explains the structure of the universe to the students.- что? строение (acc.)
- кому? ученикам (dat.)
In the original sentence, only the “what” part is expressed (строение вселенной), not “to whom”, so строение is in the accusative, not dative.
Yes, структура вселенной is also correct and very natural. The nuance:
- строение вселенной – more like “the way the universe is built/put together,” slightly more concrete or physical in feel.
- структура вселенной – a bit more technical or abstract, like “the structure/organization of the universe.”
Both are good; style and context decide which sounds better.
In Russian:
- вселенная is normally written with a lower-case letter: вселенная.
- When used as a sort of proper name for the one unique physical Universe (especially in scientific or philosophical texts), you might see Вселенная with a capital letter.
So both exist, but lower-case is more common in everyday writing.
Russian has no articles (no “a/an” or “the”). Definiteness and indefiniteness are understood from:
- context,
- word order,
- sometimes additional words.
So учитель can mean “a teacher” or “the teacher”, and вселенная can mean “a universe” or “the universe”. In this context, we naturally interpret it in English as “The teacher explains the structure of the universe.”
The neutral word order is:
- Учитель объясняет строение вселенной.
You can change the order for emphasis, for example:
Строение вселенной объясняет учитель.
Emphasis shifts to “It’s the teacher who explains the structure of the universe”, maybe in contrast to someone else.Учитель строение вселенной объясняет.
Possible, but sounds marked/poetic or like spoken emphasis: stressing what he is explaining.
The original order is the most neutral and common. The grammatical roles stay the same because of case endings, but the focus changes.
Stresses (marked with ´):
- учи́тель – u-CEE-tyel’ (stress on -чи-)
- объясня́ет – ob-yas-NYA-yet (stress on -ня́-)
- строе́ние – stro-YE-ni-ye (stress on -е́-)
- вселе́нной – fsye-LEN-noy (stress on -ле́-)
Note:
- In вселенной, the initial вс- is pronounced together: [fs], not like v-s separately.
- Unstressed о is usually pronounced closer to [a] in normal speech.
You make учитель and the verb plural:
- Учителя́ объясня́ют строе́ние вселе́нной.
- Учителя́ – teachers (nominative plural)
- объясня́ют – they explain / are explaining (3rd person plural)
- The rest of the phrase stays the same.