Breakdown of Старая крыша уже отремонтирована, и теперь в доме сухо даже в дождливую ночь.
Questions & Answers about Старая крыша уже отремонтирована, и теперь в доме сухо даже в дождливую ночь.
Отремонтирована is a short passive participle in the feminine singular form.
- The verb is отремонтировать (to repair completely, to have repaired).
- Its short passive participle forms are:
- отремонтирован – masculine
- отремонтирована – feminine
- отремонтировано – neuter
- отремонтированы – plural
Крыша is feminine singular, so we use отремонтирована to agree with it:
Старая крыша уже отремонтирована = The old roof is already repaired / has already been repaired.
If you said отремонтировали крышу, that’s a past tense verb form (they repaired the roof), active voice, with an implied subject they.
With крыша отремонтирована, the focus is on the resulting state of the roof, not on who did it.
Both are passive, but the time reference is a bit different:
Крыша уже отремонтирована
Literally: The roof is already repaired.
This describes a present state: Right now, the roof is in a repaired condition.Крыша уже была отремонтирована
Literally: The roof had already been repaired.
This normally refers to the past (it was already repaired at some earlier point in time).
In present tense, Russian usually omits the verb быть (to be), so:
- Крыша отремонтирована = The roof is repaired.
If you add была, you are moving it into the past: was/had been repaired.
They overlap in English, but they do different jobs in Russian:
уже = already
Emphasizes that some change has already happened, that something is no longer the same as before.теперь = now (as opposed to before)
Emphasizes the new situation that exists as a result of some change.
In the sentence:
- Старая крыша уже отремонтирована – the change (the repair) is already completed.
- и теперь в доме сухо – because of that completed change, now the house is dry.
So уже highlights the completed action, теперь highlights the new state that follows. Using both together is very natural.
In the present tense, Russian normally drops the verb быть (to be).
- English: It is dry in the house.
- Russian: В доме сухо.
(Literally: In the house dry.)
If you add a form of быть here, you will either sound old‑fashioned or shift the tense:
- В доме было сухо. – It was dry in the house.
- В доме будет сухо. – It will be dry in the house.
But for present meaning, just В доме сухо is correct and natural.
Сухо here is a predicative adverb / short form used to describe a general state or condition, not to modify a specific noun.
Compare:
- сухой дом – a dry house (adjective сухой directly describing дом)
- дом сухой – the house is dry (predicate adjective)
- в доме сухо – it is dry in the house (general condition inside the house)
The pattern в доме холодно/тепло/светло/темно/сыро/сухо is very common:
- В доме холодно. – It is cold in the house.
- В доме светло. – It is bright in the house.
So сухо is the normal way to talk about the ambient state in some place.
You can say дом сухой, but it has a different feeling.
Дом сухой.
Focus on the house itself as an object, more like a permanent characteristic:
The house is dry (it’s the kind of house that doesn’t get damp).В доме сухо.
Focus on the current condition inside the house:
Inside the house, it is (now) dry.
In the context of a roof being repaired so that rain no longer gets in, в доме сухо is more natural, because we are talking about what it is like inside as a result of the repair.
Дождливую ночь is accusative singular feminine:
- Dictionary form (nominative): дождливая ночь – rainy night
- Accusative feminine singular: дождливую ночь
The preposition в can govern:
- the prepositional case (location: in, at), or
- the accusative case (direction or time: when).
For time expressions, when you say in/at (a specific period), you usually use в + accusative:
- в этот день – on this day
- в прошлую неделю – last week
- в дождливую ночь – on a rainy night / during a rainy night
So дождливую is accusative feminine, agreeing with ночь in в дождливую ночь.
Both forms exist, but they have different functions:
в дождливую ночь – accusative → point in time: on a rainy night, during a rainy night
This is what we need here: even when it’s a rainy night outside, it stays dry inside.в дождливой ночи – prepositional → more poetic/literary, often part of a longer phrase, e.g.:
- в тишине дождливой ночи – in the silence of the rainy night
In normal, neutral speech, for even on a rainy night you use в дождливую ночь (accusative of time).
Russian word order is more flexible than English, but it still affects emphasis.
Neutral information order here is:
- Старая крыша уже отремонтирована
– subject (старая крыша) → adverb (уже) → predicate (отремонтирована).
If you say:
- Уже старая крыша отремонтирована,
you put уже first and give it extra emphasis, something like:
- Already the old roof is repaired (as opposed to something else that is not).
It can sound a bit marked or contrastive, as if you were contrasting the old roof with some other part (for example: the old roof is already repaired, but the walls are not yet).
In the given sentence, the neutral and most natural order is Старая крыша уже отремонтирована.
Adjectives in Russian agree with the noun they describe in gender, number, and case.
- крыша – feminine, singular, nominative.
So:- Feminine: старая крыша – old roof (correct)
- Masculine: старый крыша – wrong
- Neuter: старое крыша – wrong
Pattern:
- masculine: старый дом
- feminine: старая крыша
- neuter: старое окно
- plural: старые дома / крыши / окна
Because крыша is feminine, its adjectives and short participles also appear in feminine forms:
- старая крыша
- крыша отремонтирована (feminine short participle)
Отремонтировать is a perfective verb.
- ремонтировать – imperfective: to be repairing, to repair (as an ongoing or repeated action)
- отремонтировать – perfective: to repair completely, focusing on the result
The sentence describes the roof as already in a repaired state (the action is completed and we care about the result). That’s exactly what the perfective aspect expresses.
So:
- Крышу ремонтировали – they were repairing / used to repair the roof (process, repeated, or incomplete).
- Крышу отремонтировали – they repaired the roof (finished it).
- Крыша отремонтирована – the roof is (now) repaired (resulting state of a completed action).
Даже means even and adds emphasis. It highlights that the situation holds true under especially difficult or surprising conditions.
- В доме сухо. – It is dry in the house. (simple fact)
- В доме сухо даже в дождливую ночь. – It is dry in the house even on a rainy night (when you might expect leaks).
So даже underlines how reliable and complete the repair is: not only in normal weather, but even when it’s raining at night, the house stays dry.