Ребёнок сидит за столом.

The child is sitting at the table.

Breakdown of Ребёнок сидит за столом.

• сидеть: to sit
• стол: the table
• ребёнок: the child
• за: behind

Questions & Answers about Ребёнок сидит за столом.

Why is ребёнок used here, and does it mean a baby or just any child?

Ребёнок means child (not specifically a baby). It usually refers to a young person, roughly from toddler age up to early teens, depending on context.

Grammatically, ребёнок is:

• singular
• masculine noun
• in the nominative case (subject of the sentence)

It can refer to either a boy or a girl. The grammatical gender (masculine) does not force the child to be male; it’s just how the word behaves in Russian grammar.

What grammatical gender is ребёнок, and why does that matter for this sentence?

Ребёнок is grammatically masculine.

Why it matters:

• Verbs in the past tense will agree with it in gender:
  • Ребёнок сидел за столом. – The child was sitting at the table. (masculine past form сидел)
• Adjectives will also use masculine forms:
  • Маленький ребёнок сидит за столом. – The small child is sitting at the table.
    • маленький is masculine singular nominative.

In the present tense, like сидит, verbs do not change for gender, only for person and number, so the verb form here does not show masculine gender.

Why is сидит used, and what is its basic form?

Сидит is the 3rd person singular present tense of the verb сидеть – to sit, to be sitting.

Conjugation of сидеть (present tense):

• я сижу – I sit / I am sitting
• ты сидишь – you sit (singular, informal)
• он / она / оно сидит – he / she / it sits
• мы сидим – we sit
• вы сидите – you sit (plural or formal)
• они сидят – they sit

So ребёнок сидит literally: the child sits / is sitting.

The infinitive (dictionary form) is сидеть (imperfective aspect – it describes a process or state, not a completed action).

Is there any difference between “is sitting” and “sits” in Russian here?

In this sentence, сидит covers both English meanings:

• The child is sitting at the table.
• The child sits at the table.

Russian present tense usually corresponds to both English simple present and present continuous. Context decides whether you understand it as a current action or a general habit. Here, with no extra context, it most naturally sounds like a description of the current situation: is sitting.

What does the preposition за mean in за столом?

The preposition за has several meanings. Two of the most common are:

1. Behind:

   • Машина стоит за домом. – The car is standing behind the house.

2. At (a table / desk / piano, etc.):

   • Ребёнок сидит за столом. – The child is sitting at the table.
   • Она работает за компьютером. – She works at the computer.
   • Он сидит за пианино. – He is sitting at the piano.

In за столом, за means at (seated at, positioned at) rather than behind.

Why is it за столом with -ом at the end, and not just за стол or за столе?

Столом is the instrumental case of стол (table).

Declension of стол (singular):

• Nominative: стол – a/the table
• Genitive: стола
• Dative: столу
• Accusative: стол
• Instrumental: столом
• Prepositional: (о) столе

With за:

• For location (where someone is), Russian uses за

  • instrumental:
  • Ребёнок сидит за столом. – The child is sitting at the table. (location → столом)

• For movement towards the table, Russian uses за

  • accusative:
  • Ребёнок садится за стол. – The child is sitting down at the table / taking a seat at the table. (motion → стол)

So:

• за столом = at the table (already there, static location)
• за стол = to the table (moving to that place)

Is за столе possible, or is it just wrong?

За столе is wrong in standard Russian.

Reason: with the meaning “at the table” as a place where someone is sitting/located, за should take the instrumental case, not the prepositional.

Correct:

• за столом – at the table (instrumental)

Столе is prepositional, used mainly with в or на (and some other prepositions), for example:

• на столе – on the table
• о столе – about the table

What’s the difference between за столом and на столе?

• За столом – at the table, typically meaning someone is sitting there or positioned by the table.

  • Ребёнок сидит за столом. – The child is sitting at the table.

• На столе – on the table, on the surface of the table.

  • Книга лежит на столе. – The book is lying on the table.

So за столом is about a person being seated/located at the table, while на столе is about something being on top of it.

Why doesn’t the Russian sentence have “the” or “a” like in English?

Russian has no articles (a/an, the). The sentence Ребёнок сидит за столом. can correspond to:

• A child is sitting at the table.
• The child is sitting at the table.

Which English version is correct depends on context, not on separate words in Russian. Context, word order, and what is already known in the conversation tell you whether it is more like a child or the child.

Can I change the word order? For example, can I say За столом сидит ребёнок?

Yes. Russian has relatively flexible word order.

Both are correct:

• Ребёнок сидит за столом.
• За столом сидит ребёнок.

The basic neutral order is usually:

• Ребёнок сидит за столом.

If you say За столом сидит ребёнок, you slightly emphasize за столом (the place) or introduce the setting first, like “At the table, there is a child sitting.” It can sound a bit more descriptive or contrastive (e.g., “At the table, a child is sitting (not an adult)”).

Why is ребёнок written with ё, and can it be written with е instead?

The official spelling is ребёнок with ё. The letter ё is always pronounced “yo”.

However, in many printed texts, ё is written simply as е, so you will often see ребенок. This is very common in Russian publishing, and native speakers mentally know when е should be read as ё.

So:

• ребёнок and ребенок are the same word.
• In dictionaries and textbooks for learners, ё is usually written to help with correct pronunciation and stress.

How do you pronounce Ребёнок сидит за столом, and where is the stress?

Pronunciation with stressed syllables marked in capitals (approximate English-style):

• РебЁнок – re-BYÓ-nok (stress on -ё-)
• сидИт – see-DEET (stress on -и-)
• за – zah (unstressed, very short)
• столОм – sta-LOM (stress on -о- in the last syllable)

Together (roughly):
re-BYÓ-nok see-DEET za sta-LOM

Note:

• ё is always stressed and pronounced “yo”.
• Unstressed о often sounds close to “a” in normal speech (so за столом can sound like za stalóm).

What is the plural of ребёнок, and is it regular?

The plural of ребёнок is дети (children). It is irregular; you do not say ребёнки in standard Russian.

Examples:

• Ребёнок сидит за столом. – The child is sitting at the table.
• Дети сидят за столом. – The children are sitting at the table.

So you need to memorize:

• singular: ребёнок
• plural: дети

Are there other common words for “child” in Russian, and how are they different from ребёнок?

Yes, there are several:

• Малыш – a little child, small kid; more affectionate/informal:

  • Малыш сидит за столом. – The little one is sitting at the table.

• Дитя – poetic, old-fashioned, or very emotional:

  • Rare in everyday speech.

• Ребёнок – the most neutral, standard word for child:

  • Works in most contexts, both spoken and written.

If you just want to say child neutrally, ребёнок is usually the best choice.

What case is ребёнок in, and how does it decline?

In Ребёнок сидит за столом, ребёнок is in the nominative case, because it is the subject of the sentence.

A common declension pattern (singular):

• Nominative: ребёнок – a/the child
• Genitive: ребёнка – of the child
• Dative: ребёнку – to the child
• Accusative: ребёнка – the child (as object, animate)
• Instrumental: ребёнком – with/by the child
• Prepositional: (о) ребёнке – about the child

Example:

• Я думаю о ребёнке. – I am thinking about the child. (prepositional)
• Я играю с ребёнком. – I am playing with the child. (instrumental)