Breakdown of У моего дяди есть тридцать одинаковых чашек, и это кажется мне смешным.
Questions & Answers about У моего дяди есть тридцать одинаковых чашек, и это кажется мне смешным.
Russian usually expresses possession with the structure у + [person in genitive] + есть.
- У моего дяди есть тридцать одинаковых чашек = My uncle has thirty identical cups
Literally: At my uncle there are thirty identical cups.
The verb иметь (to have) exists, but:
- It sounds formal or bookish in many everyday contexts.
- With people as “owners,” у него/неё/меня/моего дяди есть… is much more natural.
You can say Мой дядя имеет тридцать одинаковых чашек, but in normal conversation it sounds stiff or bureaucratic. The sentence in the example is the idiomatic, everyday way to say it.
Моего дяди is in the genitive case.
- у
- noun/pronoun in genitive = “at X / X has”
- у меня – I have
- у моего дяди – my uncle has
- noun/pronoun in genitive = “at X / X has”
So:
- дядя (uncle, nominative) → дяди (genitive singular)
- мой (my, masc. nominative) → моего (masc. genitive singular)
Whenever you use у to mean “have,” you must put the “owner” in the genitive:
- У сестры есть машина. – My sister has a car.
- У студента есть вопрос. – The student has a question.
Because the possessive adjective мой must agree with the noun дядя in case, number, and gender.
We need:
- masculine
- singular
- genitive (because of у)
The forms of мой (masc./neut.) singular are:
- Nominative: мой
- Genitive: моего
- Dative: моему
- Accusative: моего (for animate) / мой (for inanimate)
- Instrumental: моим
- Prepositional: моём
So with дядя (masc. sing. genitive дяди), we must use моего:
- у моего дяди (correct)
- у мой дядя (wrong – wrong case and agreement)
Дядя (uncle) is grammatically masculine, even though it looks like many feminine nouns.
It declines like many masculine animate nouns in -я:
- Nominative: дядя – uncle
- Genitive: дяди – of (an) uncle
- Dative: дяде
- Accusative: дядю
- Instrumental: дядей
- Prepositional: о дяде
So in у моего дяди:
- дяди is genitive singular
- It’s still masculine, which is why моего (masc. gen.) is used, not моей (fem. gen.)
Russian numbers affect the case of the nouns (and adjectives) that follow them.
For 5 and above (including тридцать / 30), the counted noun is normally in the genitive plural.
- одна чашка – 1 cup (nominative singular)
- две/три/четыре чашки – 2/3/4 cups (genitive singular form)
- пять чашек – 5 cups (genitive plural)
- тридцать чашек – 30 cups (genitive plural)
So:
- чашек is genitive plural of чашка.
- The adjective одинаковых must agree with чашек in case, number, and gender:
- genitive plural → одинаковых чашек
Тридцать одинаковые чашки is ungrammatical, because it uses nominative plural after the number 30, which requires genitive plural.
Чашка (cup) declines like a regular feminine noun in -ка, but its genitive plural is чашек, not чашек with an extra vowel.
Main forms:
- Nominative singular: чашка
- Nominative plural: чашки
- Genitive plural: чашек
Pattern:
- Feminine nouns ending in -ка / -ка often form genitive plural by dropping the vowel and adding -ек:
- ложка → ложек (spoons)
- ручка → ручек (pens)
- чашка → чашек (cups)
So in the sentence:
- тридцать одинаковых чашек
чашек is genitive plural, used because of the number 30.
Adjectives in Russian must agree with the noun they describe in:
- gender
- number
- case
Here the noun чашек is:
- feminine (by base noun чашка)
- plural
- genitive
So the adjective одинаковый must also be:
- plural
- genitive
Plural forms of одинаковый:
- Nominative: одинаковые
- Genitive: одинаковых
- Dative: одинаковым
- Accusative: depends on animacy (here not relevant)
- Instrumental: одинаковыми
- Prepositional: одинаковых
Thus одинаковых чашек is a correctly agreeing genitive plural phrase.
Казаться means “to seem / to appear (to someone)”.
The typical pattern is:
- [Subject] + кажется + [dative person] + [instrumental adjective/noun]
In this sentence:
- это – subject (“this”)
- кажется – “seems” (3rd person singular)
- мне – dative (“to me”)
- смешным – instrumental singular of смешной (“funny”)
So:
- это кажется мне смешным ≈ “this seems funny to me.”
Literally:
- “This seems to-me by-funny.” (Instrumental marks the “role”/quality: in the role of funny.)
You can also say:
- Мне кажется, что… – “It seems to me that…”
- Это кажется странным. – “This seems strange.”
The verb казаться (“to seem”) uses the dative case to mark the person to whom something seems a certain way.
- мне – to me
- тебе – to you (sing.)
- ему / ей – to him / her
- нам – to us
- вам – to you (pl./formal)
- им – to them
Examples:
- Мне это кажется интересным. – This seems interesting to me.
- Ему показалось странным. – It seemed strange to him.
So мне is the natural dative object of кажется.
- Instrumental after казаться
With казаться / быть and similar verbs, Russian often uses the instrumental case to express what something “is/seems as” (its role/quality).
Pattern:
- это кажется (мне) смешным – this seems (to me) funny
- это было странным – this was strange
- он стал врачом – he became a doctor
So:
- смешной (funny, masc. nom.) → смешным (masc. instr. sing.)
- Смешным vs смешно
- смешным – an adjective in instrumental:
- это кажется мне смешным – This seems funny to me.
- смешно – an adverb / short-form predicative:
- Мне смешно. – I find it funny / I’m amused.
- Это смешно. – This is funny.
You could also say:
- Мне смешно, что у моего дяди есть тридцать одинаковых чашек.
= It’s funny to me that my uncle has thirty identical cups.
Both смешным and смешно are correct in different constructions; the original sentence uses the казаться + instrumental pattern.
Это is a neuter pronoun that refers to the whole situation just mentioned, not just one word.
In this context, это stands for:
- the fact that my uncle has thirty identical cups.
So и это кажется мне смешным ≈
- “and this (fact/situation) seems funny to me.”
Russian very often uses это to refer back to:
- an entire idea, action, or situation described in the previous clause or sentence:
- Он опоздал на три часа, и это меня разозлило. – He was three hours late, and that made me angry.
Yes, Russian word order is relatively flexible, especially for emphasis. All of these are grammatical, with slightly different focus:
И это кажется мне смешным.
Neutral; “this” comes first, then what it does to whom.И мне это кажется смешным.
Emphasizes мне (“to me”): To me, this seems funny (maybe not to others).И это мне кажется смешным.
Slight emphasis on это vs. other possible things.
All still mean roughly “and this seems funny to me.” The original order is neutral and typical.
The -ся / -сь ending is a reflexive / middle-voice marker. With казаться, it forms a verb that naturally translates as “to seem, to appear”, without a direct object.
Compare:
- показать – to show (something to someone)
- показаться – to appear, to seem
Historically, казаться is related to a verb meaning “to show oneself / to appear,” and the -ся kept that “self/appearance” meaning:
- Он показался у двери. – He appeared at the door.
- Это кажется странным. – This seems strange.
For the learner, you can mostly remember казаться as a complete unit meaning “to seem” and not worry about a literal reflexive meaning in everyday use.