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В нашем дворе дети, подростки и взрослые спокойно играют и разговаривают.

В нашем дворе дети, подростки и взрослые спокойно играют и разговаривают.
In our yard children, teenagers, and adults calmly play and talk.

Breakdown of В нашем дворе дети, подростки и взрослые спокойно играют и разговаривают.

в
in
и
and
спокойно
calmly
играть
to play
наш
our
ребёнок
the child
разговаривать
to talk
двор
the yard
подросток
the teenager
взрослый
the adult
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Questions & Answers about В нашем дворе дети, подростки и взрослые спокойно играют и разговаривают.

What case is нашем дворе, and why do both words have these endings?

Нашем дворе is in the prepositional case.

  • двор → в дворе (prepositional singular, masculine)
  • наш → в нашем (prepositional singular, masculine)

You use the prepositional case after the preposition в when you are talking about location inside or at a place (answering где? — where?).

So:

  • наш двор – nominative (subject: our yard)
  • в нашем дворе – prepositional (location: in our yard)
Why is it в нашем дворе and not на нашем дворе?

Both в and на can mean in/at/on, but they are used with different kinds of places and have some idiomatic patterns.

For двор (yard/courtyard), the usual preposition is в:

  • в дворе / во дворе – in the yard / in the courtyard

На дворе does exist, but it has a different, idiomatic meaning: outside (as opposed to inside a building), often about weather or time:

  • На дворе зима. – It’s winter outside.

In your sentence we’re talking about what is happening inside that courtyard as a space, so в нашем дворе is natural and standard.

Why is it нашем дворе and not наш двор in this sentence?

Наш двор (nominative) would make двор the subject of the sentence, e.g.:

  • Наш двор тихий. – Our yard is quiet.

In the original sentence, the yard is not the subject; it’s the place where the action happens. That requires the prepositional case with в:

  • В нашем дворе – In our yard…

So:

  • кто? что? → наш двор (subject form)
  • где? → в нашем дворе (location: where?)
Can the word order be Дети, подростки и взрослые спокойно играют и разговаривают в нашем дворе instead? Is that still correct?

Yes, that word order is also correct and natural:

  • Дети, подростки и взрослые спокойно играют и разговаривают в нашем дворе.

The difference is just in focus:

  • В нашем дворе дети, подростки и взрослые… – first emphasizes the place: In our yard, (these people) are playing…
  • Дети, подростки и взрослые… в нашем дворе. – first emphasizes who is doing the action.

Russian word order is relatively flexible. Both versions are grammatical and sound normal in everyday speech.

Why do we use the plural verbs играют and разговаривают here?

The subject of the sentence is a compound plural subject:

  • дети, подростки и взрослые – three groups of people together

In Russian, when the subject is plural (or when several things are joined by и), the verb must also be plural (3rd person plural here):

  • они играют, они разговаривают – they play, they talk

So:

  • дети, подростки и взрослые спокойно играют и разговаривают.
    → verbs agree with the plural subject.
What part of speech is спокойно and why is it not спокойные?

Спокойно here is an adverb and means calmly / peacefully. It modifies the verbs играют and разговаривают (how they play and talk).

  • играют как? → спокойно
  • разговаривают как? → спокойно

Спокойные is an adjective (plural), meaning calm as a description of people or things:

  • спокойные люди – calm people
  • спокойные дети – calm children

So:

  • Дети спокойно играют. – The children play calmly. (adverb → describes the manner of the action)
  • Спокойные дети играют. – The calm children are playing. (adjective → describes what kind of children)
Can we put спокойно in a different place, like играют и спокойно разговаривают or спокойно играют и разговаривают? Does the meaning change?

Yes, you can move спокойно, and all of these are grammatical:

  1. В нашем дворе дети, подростки и взрослые спокойно играют и разговаривают.
  2. В нашем дворе дети, подростки и взрослые играют и спокойно разговаривают.
  3. В нашем дворе дети, подростки и взрослые играют и разговаривают спокойно.

Subtle differences:

  1. спокойно before both verbs – naturally feels like it applies to both play and talk.
  2. играют и спокойно разговаривают – sounds a little more like only разговаривают is emphasized as calm.
  3. …разговаривают спокойно – strong emphasis at the end on the calmness of the talking (intonation can highlight it).

In everyday speech, all are understandable; the default neutral choice is version 1.

Why is there no comma between в нашем дворе and дети?

В нашем дворе is just an adverbial phrase of place (it answers where?). In Russian, such short adverbial phrases at the beginning of a sentence are not separated by a comma:

  • В нашем дворе дети… – In our yard, children…
  • Утром мы ушли. – In the morning, we left. (no comma in Russian)

A comma would be used if it were a separate clause or a participial phrase, but here it is just a simple prepositional phrase giving the location.

Why are there commas between дети, подростки и взрослые? Is this just a list?

Yes, this is a simple enumeration of three nouns:

  • дети,
  • подростки,
  • и взрослые.

Russian uses commas in lists in a similar way to English:

  • elements are separated by commas,
  • before the last element you put и without a comma before it.

So: дети, подростки и взрослые is the normal listing pattern.

Why are играют and разговаривают in the imperfective aspect? Could we say поиграют и поговорят instead?

Играют and разговаривают are imperfective present-tense verbs. Imperfective aspect is used for:

  • ongoing actions,
  • habitual/repeated actions,
  • general descriptions of what usually happens.

The sentence describes a general, typical situation in the yard, so imperfective is exactly what we need.

If you say поиграют и поговорят (perfective, future tense), it means:

  • they will play for a bit and have a talk (once / at some point).

That sounds like a single event in the future, not a general description of life in the yard. So it would change the meaning significantly.

Why don’t we say они before спокойно играют и разговаривают?

In Russian, the subject pronoun они is often omitted when the subject is already clear from context or explicitly stated.

Here, the subject is named right before the verb:

  • дети, подростки и взрослые – this clearly answers кто?

So adding они would be redundant:

  • В нашем дворе дети, подростки и взрослые они спокойно играют и разговаривают. – sounds unnatural and incorrect.

You could say:

  • В нашем дворе дети, подростки и взрослые. Они спокойно играют и разговаривают.
    (two sentences; the second one uses они to refer back to the first.)
What exactly does двор mean here? Is it “yard”, “courtyard”, or “playground”?

Двор is a bit broader than English yard:

  • In a city, двор usually means the shared courtyard space between apartment buildings, often where children play, where there might be benches, trees, maybe a playground.
  • For a private house, двор can be the yard area around the house.

So in this sentence, в нашем дворе most naturally suggests:

  • In the courtyard/yard area by our building (or our home)

Both yard and courtyard are reasonable translations depending on context.

How do you pronounce подростки and взрослые correctly?

Stress and approximate pronunciation:

  • подро́стки – stress on the о
    • [pa-DROST-kee] (the first о is stressed; the final и is like ee)
  • взро́слые – stress on the о
    • [VZROS-luh-yeh]
    • взр- cluster is pronounced together; -лые sounds roughly like luh-yeh.

Correct stress is important because changing stress can make the word sound strange or like a different form.