Breakdown of Он редко выходит из дома зимой.
Questions & Answers about Он редко выходит из дома зимой.
In Russian, the present tense of an imperfective verb is used for:
- Habits and repeated actions
- General truths / typical behavior
So он редко выходит из дома зимой literally is “he rarely goes out from the house in winter,” describing what typically happens every winter.
English uses the simple present for habits too (“He rarely goes out”), so structurally it’s actually parallel. It might feel odd mainly because:
- Russian present imperfective выходит can also mean “is (currently) going out,”
- but here редко (“rarely”) and зимой (“in winter”) clearly mark it as a habitual action, not something happening right now.
These verbs all involve movement, but they focus on different aspects:
выходит (выходить)
- Literally: “to go out / exit (from inside to outside)”
- Focus: crossing a boundary (from inside the house to outside)
- Fits “goes out of the house” very well.
идёт (идти)
- “goes / is going (on foot)” right now, in one direction
- Он идёт из дома = “He is walking from the house (now).”
- Not ideal for a habitual statement like “rarely goes out (in general).”
ходит (ходить)
- “goes (by foot, habitually, back-and-forth / in general)”
- Он редко ходит из дома sounds odd; ходить из дома isn’t the usual way to say “leave the house.”
- You’d more likely say Он редко ходит куда-нибудь зимой (“He rarely goes anywhere in winter.”)
уходит (уходить)
- “to leave, go away (from a place)”
- Focus: leaving, not specifically “going out from inside.”
- Он редко уходит из дома зимой = “He rarely leaves home in winter.”
- Similar meaning, but slightly more about leaving than the inside→outside idea.
So выходит is chosen because we specifically mean “goes out (from inside the house)” and it’s the normal, natural way to say that.
No, Он редко выйдет из дома зимой is not natural for the intended meaning.
выходит (выходить, imperfective)
- Used for habits, repeated actions, and general patterns:
- Он редко выходит из дома зимой. = “He rarely goes out (habitually) in winter.”
- Used for habits, repeated actions, and general patterns:
выйдет (выйти, perfective)
- Present form of a perfective verb actually refers to the future:
- Он выйдет из дома. = “He will go out of the house (once).”
- With редко, it could only be used in very specific contexts, like making predictions about a limited number of future events, e.g.:
- (Talking about the coming winter specifically, comparing a few expected outings)
Этой зимой он редко выйдет из дома.
“This winter he will rarely go out of the house.” (focus on that one upcoming winter)
- (Talking about the coming winter specifically, comparing a few expected outings)
- Present form of a perfective verb actually refers to the future:
For general habits (“In winter he rarely goes out”), Russian strongly prefers imperfective: выходит.
The choice of preposition depends on the type of movement and the relationship to the place:
из + Genitive = “out of / from inside (something enclosed)”
- из дома = “out of the house / from the house (interior)”
- Used for leaving confined spaces: из комнаты (out of the room), из школы (out of the school building), etc.
от + Genitive = “(away) from (a point / person / object)”
- Focuses on distance increasing from a point, not on exiting an interior.
- от дома = “away from the house / from near the house (as a point).”
- More like “from the vicinity of the house,” not “from inside it.”
Here, we mean leaving from inside the house, so из дома is correct and natural.
In из дома, дома is the genitive singular of дом (“house”):
- дом – nominative singular (“house”)
- дома – genitive singular: “of the house / from the house”
- after из (from/out of): из дома = “from (out of) the house”
Other common forms:
- в доме – prepositional: “in the house”
- к дому – dative: “to the house”
- домой – special adverb: “(going) home”
- Он идёт домой. = “He is going home.”
There is also дома́ (with stress on the last syllable) as an adverb meaning “at home”:
- Он дома́. = “He is at home.”
So:
- из дОма (stress on дО-) – genitive: “out of the house.”
- дома́ (stress on -ма́) – adverb: “at home.”
In из дома, it’s the genitive noun form, not the adverb.
зимой is the instrumental singular of зима (“winter”):
- зима – nominative (“winter”)
- зимой – instrumental singular
In Russian, the instrumental case is often used to express “in/at (a period of time)”, especially for seasons and parts of the day:
- зимой – in winter
- летом (from лето) – in summer
- осенью (from осень) – in autumn/fall
- утром (from утро) – in the morning
- вечером (from вечер) – in the evening
So Он редко выходит из дома зимой. = “He rarely goes out of the house in winter.”
There is an alternative form зимою (also instrumental), a bit more literary/old-fashioned, but зимой is the standard everyday form.
Russian word order is more flexible than English and mainly shifts emphasis, not basic meaning.
All of these are grammatically correct and natural:
- Он редко выходит из дома зимой.
- Он зимой редко выходит из дома.
- Зимой он редко выходит из дома.
- Редко он выходит из дома зимой. (much more emphatic / stylistic)
Typical nuances:
Зимой он редко выходит из дома.
- Slight emphasis on “in winter” (contrasting seasons):
“In winter, he rarely goes out of the house (unlike other times).”
- Slight emphasis on “in winter” (contrasting seasons):
Он зимой редко выходит из дома.
- Slightly more neutral; you notice both “in winter” and “rarely” as circumstances.
Редко он выходит из дома зимой.
- Puts strong emphasis on “rarely”; stylistic, can sound literary or emotional.
The most neutral, everyday version is probably either the original Он редко выходит из дома зимой. or Зимой он редко выходит из дома.
Yes, you can, but the meaning changes slightly:
Он редко выходит из дома зимой.
- Focus: he rarely leaves the house in winter.
Он редко выходит зимой.
- More general: he rarely goes out (outside) in winter.
- The idea “from the house” is understood, but not stated explicitly. It could just mean he rarely goes outside at all.
In most everyday contexts, Он редко выходит зимой. will still be understood as “he rarely goes outside (from home) in winter,” but из дома makes “house” explicit and a little more concrete.
In Russian, subject pronouns are usually not dropped unless:
- The subject is very clear from the verb ending and the broader context, and
- The style is colloquial, diary-like, or telegraphic.
Редко выхожу из дома зимой. – is fine, because -у on выхожу tells us it’s “I”.
But Редко выходит из дома зимой. (without он) is ambiguous:
- выходит could be he/she/it/you (formal), so you’d usually want the pronoun:
- Он редко выходит из дома зимой.
- Она редко выходит из дома зимой.
You might see Редко выходит из дома зимой. in narrative text where the subject is obvious from previous sentences, but for a standalone sentence, keep он.
Stresses in this sentence:
- Он – one syllable, stress on Он.
- рЕдко – stress on рЕ-.
- вЫходит – вЫ-хо-дит, stress on вЫ-.
- из – one syllable, stressed.
- дОма (genitive “of the house”) – stress on дО-.
- зимОй – stress on -мОй.
Important contrast for дома:
- дОма – genitive of дом: “of the house” → из дОма
- дома́ – adverb: “at home” → Он дома́. (“He is at home.”)
In speech, context often makes it clear even if the stress is not perfect, but it’s good to know the difference.
Russian doesn’t mark definiteness (the/this) vs indefiniteness (a/some) grammatically. It’s understood from context.
Он редко выходит из дома зимой. can, in theory, be:
- “He rarely goes out of the house in winter.”
- “He rarely goes out of his house in winter.”
- “He rarely goes out of a house in winter.”
In normal conversation, you’d automatically interpret it as “his/the house where he lives”, because:
- выходит из дома зимой describes a personal routine,
- and it’s about his home unless specified otherwise.
If you needed to make it very clear it’s some house or a specific house, you’d add more words:
- Он редко выходит из своего дома зимой. – “out of his own house”
- Он редко выходит из этого дома зимой. – “out of this house”
These express different degrees of frequency:
редко – “rarely, infrequently”
- He does go out sometimes, but not often.
- Он редко выходит из дома зимой. – He does go out, but infrequently.
почти не
- verb – “almost doesn’t”
- Stronger: he very seldom goes out, maybe just a few times.
- Он почти не выходит из дома зимой. – “He almost never goes out of the house in winter.”
никогда не
- verb – “never”
- Absolute: he doesn’t go out at all.
- Он никогда не выходит из дома зимой. – “He never goes out of the house in winter.”
So редко suggests low frequency, but not zero.