Learn Hardcore Russian: Хотя на улице идёт дождь, я всё равно гуляю по тротуару. - Although it is raining outside, I still walk along the sidewalk.

Хотя на улице идёт дождь, я всё равно гуляю по тротуару.

Although it is raining outside, I still walk along the sidewalk.

Breakdown of Хотя на улице идёт дождь, я всё равно гуляю по тротуару.

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Questions & Answers about Хотя на улице идёт дождь, я всё равно гуляю по тротуару.

What exactly does Хотя mean here, and how is this kind of clause structured?

Хотя means although / even though and introduces a concessive clause: something that is true but contrasts with the main clause.

Structure in the sentence:

Хотя на улице идёт дождь, – subordinate (dependent) clause
я всё равно гуляю по тротуару. – main clause

In Russian, when a sentence begins with a Хотя‑clause, you normally put a comma before the main clause, just like in English:

Хотя на улице идёт дождь, я всё равно гуляю по тротуару.
Although it is raining outside, I still walk along the sidewalk.

You can also reverse the order:

Я всё равно гуляю по тротуару, хотя на улице идёт дождь.
(Same meaning; the contrast is just presented later.)

Why is it на улице идёт дождь and not something like дождь идёт на улице? Is the word order important?

Both на улице идёт дождь and идёт дождь на улице are grammatically possible, but:

идёт дождь is a very fixed, natural phrase meaning it’s raining.
на улице (outside) is then added as context.

So the most neutral versions are:

На улице идёт дождь.
Идёт дождь на улице. (less common, more marked / stylistic)

Дождь идёт на улице sounds less natural in everyday speech, because:

starting with the subject дождь makes it feel more like you are talking about the rain as an object, not about the general weather.
in weather phrases, Russian tends to put the verb first: идёт дождь, идёт снег, дут ветры is less common, etc.

For a learner, the safest and most idiomatic is simply:

На улице идёт дождь.

In English, идёт usually means "goes / is going". Why is идёт дождь used to mean it’s raining?

Literally, идёт дождь is something like the rain is going / the rain is coming down, but in modern Russian it functions as a fixed weather expression:

идёт дождь = it (is) raining
идёт снег = it (is) snowing
идёт град = it (is) hailing

You don’t normally translate идёт here as goes; you just remember the whole phrase as the natural way of saying it’s raining.

There is also a verb дождить (to rain), but it’s much less common and sounds somewhat bookish or colloquial depending on context; идёт дождь is the standard everyday form.

What does всё равно add to the meaning, and where can it go in the sentence?

Всё равно means roughly still / anyway / regardless / all the same. It shows that the action in the main clause happens despite the situation in the subordinate clause.

Хотя на улице идёт дождь, я всё равно гуляю по тротуару.
= Although it’s raining outside, I still / nevertheless walk along the sidewalk.

Common positions for всё равно are:

After the subject: я всё равно гуляю по тротуару
Between parts of a compound verb phrase: я буду всё равно гулять
At the beginning of the main clause in speech for emphasis: Я всё равно гуляю по тротуару.

You wouldn’t usually put it at the very end (я гуляю по тротуару всё равно) unless you’re making a special stylistic or emotional emphasis.

Related expressions with a similar idea:

тем не менее – nevertheless (more formal, written)
вопреки этому – in spite of this
несмотря на это – despite this

Why is гуляю used here and not иду or хожу?

In Russian, these verbs have slightly different focuses:

гулять = to walk around, to stroll, to be out walking (often for pleasure or exercise)
- я гуляю по тротуару – I’m out walking / strolling on the sidewalk.
идти (unidirectional) = to go (on foot) in one specific direction, usually right now or in the near future
- я иду по тротуару – I’m going/walking along the sidewalk (to some destination).
ходить (multidirectional) = to go by foot in general, habitually, or back-and-forth
- я хожу по тротуару – I walk on the sidewalk (in general / habitually).

So гуляю emphasizes the activity of walking/strolling itself, not the destination. It fits well with the idea "I still go for a walk (for pleasure) even though it’s raining."

What case is тротуару in, and why do we say по тротуару and not something like на тротуаре?

Тротуару is dative singular of тротуар (sidewalk).

With гулять, Russian commonly uses по + dative to mean to walk along / around / over a surface or area:

гулять по тротуару – walk along the sidewalk
гулять по парку – walk around the park
гулять по берегу – walk along the shore

На тротуаре (prepositional case) means on the sidewalk in a more static sense (location), and is often used just to say where something/someone is, not necessarily moving along it:

Я стою на тротуаре. – I’m standing on the sidewalk.

You can say гулять на тротуаре, but it tends to highlight the place as a surface you’re on, not the idea of moving along it. Гулять по тротуару is the more idiomatic choice for "walking along the sidewalk."

Why is улице in the form улице and тротуар in the form тротуару? They look similar but end differently.

They are in different cases with different prepositions:

на улице – на + prepositional case (улица → улице)
- Used here to indicate location: outside, in the street.
по тротуару – по + dative case (тротуар → тротуару)
- Used here to indicate movement along something.

So:

улица is feminine (1st declension):
- nominative: улица
- prepositional (на где?): на улице
тротуар is masculine (2nd declension):
- nominative: тротуар
- dative (по чему?): по тротуару

The different endings are just regular case endings for those noun types.

The English translation uses a continuous form: is raining, am walking. Russian here uses simple present. Does идёт дождь and гуляю specifically mean "right now"?

Yes, in this context идёт дождь and я гуляю refer to what is happening now, and they naturally correspond to English present continuous:

На улице идёт дождь. – It is raining outside.
Я гуляю по тротуару. – I am walking along the sidewalk.

Russian does not have a separate grammatical "continuous" form. The simple present of an imperfective verb usually covers both:

general/habitual actions, and
actions happening right now.

Which one is meant depends on context and sometimes adverbs (like сейчас, обычно).

In this sentence, the presence of Хотя and всё равно plus the vivid situation makes "right now" the natural reading.

Is идёт дождь considered an impersonal construction in Russian, like "it is raining" in English?

Grammatically, идёт дождь is not impersonal:

дождь is the subject (nominative).
идёт is the 3rd person singular verb form.

It’s a personal sentence with normal subject–verb agreement.

However, in terms of meaning, it behaves similarly to English weather expressions like it is raining, where it doesn’t refer to a real object. Russian often simply uses a weather noun as the subject:

идёт дождь – rain is going (it’s raining)
дует ветер – wind is blowing (it’s windy)
светит солнце – sun is shining

Compare truly impersonal Russian weather forms like:

морозит – it’s freezing
смеркается – it’s getting dark

But идёт дождь itself is formally personal.

Could we leave out на улице and just say Хотя идёт дождь, я всё равно гуляю по тротуару?

Yes, that’s perfectly grammatical and natural:

Хотя идёт дождь, я всё равно гуляю по тротуару.

Meaning: Although it’s raining, I still walk along the sidewalk.

Adding на улице just makes the scene more explicit and idiomatic, because:

на улице is a very common phrase for outside / outdoors.

На улице идёт дождь often feels like a standard weather report line: “Outside, it’s raining.” But omitting на улице changes very little here.

What is the difference between using хотя and несмотря на то, что in this kind of sentence?

Both introduce a concessive idea ("although / despite the fact that"):

Хотя на улице идёт дождь, я всё равно гуляю по тротуару.
Несмотря на то, что на улице идёт дождь, я всё равно гуляю по тротуару.

Differences:

хотя is shorter, more neutral, used very widely in speech and writing.
несмотря на то, что is longer, often feels slightly more formal or emphatic, similar to despite the fact that in English.

In everyday conversation, хотя is usually preferred because it’s concise. Несмотря на то, что can sound more serious or stylistic, but here both are correct.

Where exactly does the comma go with Хотя? Is it always before я in this sentence?

The comma separates the subordinate хотя‑clause from the main clause.

If the хотя‑clause comes first, the comma comes after it:

Хотя на улице идёт дождь, я всё равно гуляю по тротуару.

If the main clause comes first and хотя introduces the clause after it, the comma goes before хотя:

Я всё равно гуляю по тротуару, хотя на улице идёт дождь.

So the rule is: put the comma between the subordinate clause and the main clause, not always specifically "before я" or "before хотя"; it depends on the order.

How would I say this about the future, like "Although it will be raining outside, I will still walk along the sidewalk"?

For the future, you change the verbs to future forms:

Future of rain:
- будет идти дождь – will be raining / the rain will be going
Future of гулять (imperfective future, because we care about the ongoing action):
- я буду гулять – I will (be) walking

So a natural future version:

Хотя на улице будет идти дождь, я всё равно буду гулять по тротуару.

You can sometimes shorten it in speech:

Хотя на улице будет дождь, я всё равно буду гулять по тротуару.
(Here будет дождь = there will be rain / it will be rainy.)

Both versions are acceptable; будет идти дождь stresses the process of raining a bit more.