Вечером гости входят в дом.

the house

Breakdown of Вечером гости входят в дом.

• в: to
• гость: the guest
• вечером: in the evening
• входить: to enter

Questions & Answers about Вечером гости входят в дом.

What does вечером literally mean, and why does it end in -ом?

Вечером literally means “in the evening / in the evenings.”

Grammatically:

• The base word is вечер (evening).
• вечером is the instrumental case singular of вечер, but with time expressions, the instrumental often means “at / in / during (a period of time)”.

So:

• вечер – evening
• вечером – in the evening / in the evenings (when? → time)

This is a very common pattern:

• утром – in the morning
• днём – in the daytime / in the afternoon
• ночью – at night

Could I put вечером at the end and say Гости входят в дом вечером? Is that still correct?

Yes, that’s correct. Both orders are grammatical:

• Вечером гости входят в дом.
• Гости входят в дом вечером.

The meaning is the same (“The guests enter the house in the evening”), but the emphasis changes slightly:

• Вечером гости входят в дом. – The time вечером is more in focus; you’re setting the scene: As for the evening, (what happens is) the guests enter the house.
• Гости входят в дом вечером. – Slightly more neutral; you’re talking about the guests, and then add when they do it.

In everyday speech, both word orders are natural.

Why is гости used here? What form is it, and what is the singular?

Гости is:

• Nominative plural (subject of the sentence).
• The singular is гость (guest).

So:

• один гость – one guest
• два гостя – two guests
• много гостей – many guests
• гости входят – (the) guests enter

Note: гость is grammatically masculine, even though its plural looks similar to some feminine plurals.

Why is it входят, not входят в something like in English “enter into”?

In Russian, входить already includes the idea of “going in / entering”:

• входить = to go in, to enter
• входить в дом = literally “to enter into the house”

You almost always use входить with a destination introduced by в (into) or на (onto), so входить в дом is normal and not redundant in Russian. It’s just how the verb is used.

What is the difference between входят and войдут here?

Both come from the verb pair:

• входить (imperfective)
• войти (perfective)

входят – present tense, imperfective, 3rd person plural

• Used for repeated / habitual actions or an ongoing process.
• In this sentence, it suggests something that happens regularly:
  Вечером гости входят в дом. – In the evening (in general / usually), the guests enter the house.

войдут – future tense, perfective, 3rd person plural

• Describes a single, complete event in the future:
  Вечером гости войдут в дом. – In the evening (this coming evening / that evening), the guests will enter the house (once).

So:

• Habitual / general: входят
• One-time future event: войдут

Why is в дом in the accusative, not в доме?

The preposition в can take:

• Accusative – when there is motion into / towards something (direction).
• Prepositional – when something is located inside (position).

Here we have motion into the house:

• входят в дом – they enter into the house → в дом (accusative)

Compare:

• Гости входят в дом. – The guests are going into the house. (direction → дом, accusative)
• Гости в доме. – The guests are in the house. (location → доме, prepositional)

Could we say в доме in this sentence? What would it mean?

If you say Вечером гости входят в доме, it sounds wrong or at least very odd, because входить is about entering, i.e., movement into a place.

в доме (prepositional) means “inside the house” and normally goes with static verbs or states:

• Гости живут в доме. – The guests live in the house.
• Гости сидят в доме. – The guests sit in the house.

With входить, you almost always use в + accusative:

• входить в дом
• входить в комнату
• входить в магазин

Is входят really present tense? It feels like future in English (“In the evening the guests will enter the house”).

Grammatically, входят is present tense (they enter / they are entering).

But in Russian, the imperfective present can describe:

1. Actions happening right now
2. Regular / habitual actions
3. Scheduled/typical events (similar to English “The train leaves at six.”)

Вечером гости входят в дом. is most naturally understood as a habitual action:

• “In the evenings, the guests enter the house (that’s what they usually do).”

If you want a specific future event, Russian would prefer:

• Вечером гости войдут в дом. – In the evening, the guests will enter the house.

Is вечером more like “this evening” or “in the evenings (generally)”?

By itself, вечером is ambiguous; context decides:

1. General / habitual meaning (most common here):
   Вечером гости входят в дом. – In the evenings, the guests (usually) enter the house.

2. Specific evening (if context is clear):
   If you’ve just been talking about tonight, вечером can be understood as “this evening”:

   • (Talking about today’s plan) Вечером гости войдут в дом. – This evening the guests will enter the house.

In your sentence with входят, the form strongly suggests a habitual action, so “in the evenings” is a natural interpretation.

How is входят pronounced and where is the stress?

Входят is pronounced approximately like “v-HO-dyat” in English spelling.

Details:

• Stress is on the first syllable: вхо́-дят.
• вх- is pronounced together; the в is not silent.
• -дят has a soft дь sound because of the я.

Full word stress pattern:

• Ве́чером – stress on ве́
• го́сти – stress on го́
• вхо́дят – stress on вхо́
• дом – one syllable, stressed.

Could we use приходят or заходят instead of входят? What’s the difference?

Yes, you could, but the nuance changes:

• входят (в дом) – literally “enter (the house)”, focuses on the physical act of going inside.
• приходят (домой / в дом) – “come (to the house)”, emphasizes arrival from somewhere else, not specifically crossing the doorway.
• заходят (в дом) – “drop by, go into (the house) briefly”, often feels more informal / casual, like stopping in.

Examples:

• Вечером гости входят в дом. – In the evening, the guests go into the house. (emphasis on entering the building)
• Вечером гости приходят домой. – In the evening, the guests come home. (emphasis on arrival)
• Вечером гости заходят в дом. – In the evening, the guests (usually) stop by / go in (for a while).

In your original sentence, входят в дом is the most neutral if you want to highlight entering the house itself.

There is no word for “the” in гости or дом. How do we know it’s “the guests” and “the house”?

Russian does not have articles (a, an, the). Whether English needs “the” or “a” is decided from context, not from any special word in Russian.

• гости could be “guests” or “the guests”
• дом could be “a house” or “the house”

In this sentence, it’s natural in English to say:

• “In the evening the guests enter the house.”

because we usually assume we’re talking about specific guests and a specific house everyone in the conversation knows about. But in Russian, nothing in the word form itself marks this; context does all the work.