Breakdown of Её старый фотоаппарат уже сломан, поэтому она фотографирует на телефон.
Questions & Answers about Её старый фотоаппарат уже сломан, поэтому она фотографирует на телефон.
The possessive pronoun её means her and is indeclinable: it never changes its form for gender, number, or case. It can be used with any noun:
- её брат – her brother (masc.)
- её сестра – her sister (fem.)
- её письмо – her letter (neut.)
The adjective старый does change to agree with the noun it describes. The noun фотоаппарат is grammatically masculine, so the adjective must be masculine:
- старый фотоаппарат – old camera (masc.)
- старая камера – old camera (fem., different word)
- старое здание – old building (neut.)
So её старый фотоаппарат is literally her old camera, with старый agreeing with фотоаппарат, not with её.
Сломан is a short-form passive past participle. Very practical way to think of it:
- Фотоаппарат сломан ≈ The camera is broken (describes its state).
Comparisons:
сломанный (long-form participle / adjective)
- сломанный фотоаппарат – a broken camera (used before a noun, like an adjective)
- Focus: a property of the noun.
сломан (short form)
- Фотоаппарат сломан – The camera is broken.
- Used mainly in the predicate (after the subject) to describe a resulting state.
сломался (past tense verb, perfective, reflexive)
- Фотоаппарат сломался – The camera broke / has broken.
- Focus: the event of breaking, not just the state afterward.
In your sentence:
- Её старый фотоаппарат уже сломан – Her old camera is already (in a) broken (state).
If you say: - Её старый фотоаппарат уже сломался, you’re emphasizing that it has already broken (the action/event) rather than just calmly describing the state.
In modern Russian, the present tense of быть (to be) – the form есть – is normally omitted in sentences like this.
So:
- Её старый фотоаппарат уже сломан
literally looks like Her old camera already broken, but it means
Her old camera is already broken.
Using есть here (…уже есть сломан) is grammatically possible in a very formal or special emphatic style, but in normal speech and writing it sounds unnatural or archaic, especially with short-form participles like сломан.
General rule: in the present tense,
- X – adjective / short-form participle → no есть:
- Он болен. – He is ill.
- Дверь открыта. – The door is open.
- Фотоаппарат сломан. – The camera is broken.
Поэтому means therefore / so / that’s why. It introduces a result:
- Её старый фотоаппарат уже сломан, поэтому она фотографирует на телефон.
Her old camera is already broken, therefore she takes pictures with her phone.
Потому что means because and introduces a reason:
- Она фотографирует на телефон, потому что её старый фотоаппарат уже сломан.
She takes pictures with her phone because her old camera is already broken.
So they are complementary:
- …потому что A = …because A (A = cause)
- A, поэтому… = A, therefore… (A = cause)
You use one or the other, depending on whether you start from the cause or from the result.
Literally, фотографировать на телефон is to photograph onto the phone, but idiomatically it means to take pictures with a phone / on a phone.
Russian has a very common pattern with recording/taking images:
- фотографировать на телефон – take photos with a phone
- снимать на камеру – shoot (video) on a camera
- снимать на плёнку – shoot on film
- записывать на диктофон – record on a voice recorder
- записывать на флешку – save/record to a flash drive
The preposition на with the accusative often expresses direction / target / medium: onto, to, on (as a medium).
So на телефон is the target/medium: the photos end up on/in the phone. In English we typically say with her phone, but Russian conceptualizes it more as onto the phone.
Because with this verb and meaning, Russian prefers the на + accusative (medium/target) pattern:
- фотографировать на телефон – to shoot onto the phone / on a phone
Grammatically, after на used in the sense of onto / to / onto a medium, you need the accusative. For inanimate masculine nouns, accusative singular looks the same as nominative:
- nominative: телефон
- accusative (inanimate): телефон
So на телефон is на + accusative, not instrumental.
Compare:
- класть книгу на стол – to put a book onto the table (на + accusative)
- книга лежит на столе – the book lies on the table (на + prepositional)
Similarly:
- записать номер на бумагу – write the number onto the paper (medium)
- фотографировать на телефон – take photos onto the phone (medium)
You can say фотографировать телефоном (instrumental – with a phone) and it is understandable, but the idiomatic, most natural phrase is фотографировать на телефон.
Formally it looks like nominative, but in this sentence it’s accusative, governed by на in its direction/medium meaning.
For inanimate masculine nouns, nominative and accusative singular are identical:
- телефон (nom.) – the phone
- Я купил телефон. – I bought a phone. (телефон = accusative)
So in фотографирует на телефон, телефон is:
- accusative singular, object of the preposition на (meaning: onto / as a medium).
Yes, you can, but it slightly changes the nuance.
- на телефон – on the phone (the default; context usually makes it clear it’s her phone)
- на свой телефон – on her own phone (emphasizes that it’s her own device, not, say, a work phone or someone else’s)
- на её телефон – on her phone (explicitly contrasts her phone with another person’s phone)
In the original sentence, adding a pronoun is not necessary because:
- We already know we’re talking about her equipment from её старый фотоаппарат.
- Russian often omits possessive pronouns when ownership is obvious from context.
So:
- Её старый фотоаппарат уже сломан, поэтому она фотографирует на телефон.
is the most natural neutral way to say it.
На свой телефон or на её телефон are possible if you want extra emphasis or contrast.
Фотографирует is:
- present tense
- 3rd person singular
- imperfective aspect
It can express:
- An action happening now:
- Сейчас она фотографирует на телефон. – She is taking pictures on her phone now.
- A habitual/regular action (which fits your sentence well):
- Она фотографирует на телефон. – She (generally) takes pictures with her phone.
Perfective forms:
- сфотографирует – future, perfective: she will take a picture (once / as a complete act)
- сфотографировала – past, perfective, feminine: she took a picture / she has taken a picture
So:
- Её старый фотоаппарат уже сломан, поэтому она фотографирует на телефон.
– describes her current or usual way of taking photos now that the camera is broken.
If you used perfective, you would talk about a single completed act, not her general practice:
- Её старый фотоаппарат уже сломан, поэтому она сфотографировала на телефон.
– Her old camera was already broken, so she took the picture on her phone (on that occasion).
Usually, no – in this sentence, omitting она would sound unnatural or unclear.
Russian sometimes drops subject pronouns when the subject is obvious from the verb ending (especially я, ты, мы, вы), but for third person subjects it’s less common, because the verb ending alone doesn’t tell you who the subject is.
Compare:
- иду – must be я (I go)
- идёшь – must be ты (you go)
But:
- фотографирует – could be он / она / оно / кто-то (he/she/it/someone photographs)
So:
- …поэтому фотографирует на телефон.
would sound like “…therefore (someone) takes pictures on a phone”, with the subject left vague.
Она clearly refers back to the woman with её старый фотоаппарат, so it is normally kept:
- …поэтому она фотографирует на телефон.
Yes, in practice её and ее are the same word; they are just two ways of writing it.
- её – with ё (phonetic/fully marked spelling)
- ее – with е only (common simplified spelling)
In many printed texts, the dots on ё are omitted and replaced by е, even though the pronunciation stays yo: [йо].
So:
- её старый фотоаппарат
- ее старый фотоаппарат
are identical in meaning and pronunciation: her old camera.