Learn Hardcore Russian: Взрослый спокойно объясняет правило ребёнку. - An adult calmly explains the rule to a child.

Russian very often uses adjectives as nouns (especially for people):
- взрослый – an adult
- больной – a (sick) patient
- молодой – a young person, etc.
The form взрослый is grammatically masculine singular nominative. However, it can refer to:
- a specific man (if the context makes this clear), or
- an adult in general, when gender is not specified or not important. In that sense, it’s “gender‑neutral” in meaning, but masculine in grammar.

If you want to make it explicitly feminine, you’d say взрослая (“an adult woman / female adult”).

Here, взрослый = an adult (person), not specifically “a man” unless context says so.

What case is ребёнку, and why does it have the -у ending?

Ребёнку is in the dative case.

Dictionary form (nominative): ребёнок – child
Dative singular: ребёнку – to the child / for the child

Russian uses the dative case for the indirect object – the person who receives something (an object, information, an explanation, etc.).

In English you say:
> An adult explains the rule to the child.

The “to the child” part corresponds to the dative in Russian, so you get:
> ребёнку – to the child.

The -у ending is one of the regular dative singular endings for masculine nouns like ребёнок → ребёнку.

What case is правило, and why does it look like the nominative form?

Правило here is in the accusative case, functioning as the direct object (“the rule” being explained).

For neuter inanimate nouns like правило:

Nominative singular: правило
Accusative singular: правило (same form)

So it looks like nominative, but in the sentence it’s actually accusative because it answers “what?” after the verb:

объясняет (что?) правило – explains what? – the rule.

This is a standard pattern: inanimate neuter and inanimate masculine nouns often have the same form in nominative and accusative singular.

Why is it спокойно and not спокойный?

Спокойно is an adverb, meaning calmly.
Спокойный is an adjective, meaning calm (describing a noun).

In English, you use an adverb to describe how someone does something:

He explains calmly. (not “He explains calm”)

Russian does exactly the same:

спокойно объясняет – (he/she) explains calmly.

Formally:

many Russian adverbs are formed from adjectives with -о:
- спокойный → спокойно (calm → calmly)
- быстрый → быстро (fast → quickly)
- тихий → тихо (quiet → quietly)

Why is the word order взрослый спокойно объясняет правило ребёнку? Can I move the words around?

Russian word order is more flexible than English, because case endings show who does what to whom. The “neutral” order here is:

взрослый (subject)
спокойно объясняет (verb + adverb)
правило (direct object)
ребёнку (indirect object)

You can rearrange the words, but the emphasis changes. For example:

Взрослый объясняет ребёнку правило спокойно.
– Slightly more emphasis on how it’s explained (calmly).
Ребёнку взрослый спокойно объясняет правило.
– Emphasis shifts to to the child (as opposed to someone else).
Правило взрослый спокойно объясняет ребёнку.
– Emphasis on the rule (this rule, not another).

All of these are grammatically possible, but the original order sounds most neutral and typical for a textbook example.

What aspect is объясняет, and how would the perfective form change the meaning?

Объясняет comes from the imperfective verb объяснять.

Imperfective: объяснять – to explain (in general, in progress, repeated)
- Present: объясняет – (he/she) explains / is explaining

The perfective counterpart is объяснить.

Perfective: объяснить – to explain (as a single, complete action, result‑focused)
- Future: объяснит – (he/she) will explain / will have explained

Compare:

Взрослый спокойно объясняет правило ребёнку.
– The adult is explaining the rule (now) / (habitually) explains it calmly.
Взрослый спокойно объяснит правило ребёнку.
– The adult will calmly explain the rule (and finish explaining it).

In the present tense, Russian normally uses only imperfective verbs, so объясняет is the natural choice here.

Does объясняет mean “explains” or “is explaining”? How do I know?

In Russian, the same present tense form of an imperfective verb usually covers both:

English simple present:
- He explains the rule to the child.
English present continuous:
- He is explaining the rule to the child.

So объясняет can be translated as either explains or is explaining, depending on context. Russian doesn’t make that distinction in the verb form itself.

Why is it объясняет, not something like объясняетЬ or another ending?

Объясняет is the 3rd person singular present tense form of объяснять.

Conjugation pattern (imperfective объяснять):

я объясняю – I explain
ты объясняешь – you (sg) explain
он/она объясняет – he/she explains
мы объясняем – we explain
вы объясняете – you (pl/formal) explain
они объясняют – they explain

So the -ет ending shows 3rd person singular (he/she/it). There is no final -ь in this form; infinitives often end in -ть (объяснять), but finite present tense forms drop the -ть and add person/number endings like -ет, -ют, -ешь, etc.

How does Russian show that взрослый is the subject and ребёнку is the indirect object, if there are no articles?

Russian relies on case endings, not on articles, to show grammatical roles.

взрослый – nominative case (subject): who? explains
правило – accusative (direct object): explains what?
ребёнку – dative (indirect object): explains to whom?

Even if you change word order, the endings tell you the function:

Взрослый объясняет правило ребёнку.
Ребёнку взрослый объясняет правило.

Both still mean An adult explains the rule to the child, because:

–ый → nominative masculine singular (взрослый)
–о → nominative/accusative neuter singular (правило)
–у → dative masculine singular (ребёнку)

Russian doesn’t use articles (a/the). Definiteness or new/old information is usually understood from context and sometimes from word order and intonation.

Why is there no preposition like к or для with ребёнку?

Russian often uses the bare dative case (without a preposition) to mark an indirect object – the recipient of an action:

объяснять что‑то кому‑то – to explain something to someone
- объяснять правило ребёнку – to explain the rule to the child

You don’t need к or для here; they would change the meaning:

к ребёнку – (movement) towards the child
для ребёнка – for the child (for the child’s benefit, intended for the child)

In our sentence we simply have “to the child”, so the plain dative ребёнку is correct and natural.

Could I say спокойно объясняет правило ребёнку взрослый instead? Is that wrong?

It is grammatically correct, but the emphasis changes a lot and it sounds less neutral, more stylized.

Взрослый спокойно объясняет правило ребёнку.
– Neutral statement: An adult calmly explains the rule to the child.
Спокойно объясняет правило ребёнку взрослый.
– Emphasis is moved to взрослый (the adult) as new or contrastive information:
“It is the adult who calmly explains the rule to the child”
(as opposed to the child explaining, or someone else).

This kind of order is possible in Russian, especially in literary style or when you want to highlight a particular word, but for a standard, neutral sentence the original word order is more typical.

Where does the stress fall in the words of this sentence?

Approximate stresses (stressed syllables in CAPS):

ВЗРОС-лый – взРОслый (more precisely: vzrÓs-lyy)
спо-КОЙ-но – spokÓyno
об-ъяс-НЯ-ет – ob-yas-NYÁ-yet
ПРА-ви-ло – PRÁ-vi-lo
ре-БЁН-ку – re-BYÓN-ku

So the full sentence with marked stress is:

взРОслый спокÓйно объяснЯ́ет прÁвило ребЁнку.

Knowing stress is important in Russian, because it often changes both pronunciation and, sometimes, meaning.