Questions & Answers about Девочка красиво поёт песню.
Russian distinguishes several common words for females:
- девочка – a girl, typically a child or young teenager. Very clearly “a little/young girl.”
- девушка – a young woman / teenage girl, usually from about 14–15 up to late twenties. Often implies someone who is no longer a child.
- женщина – an adult woman.
In Девочка красиво поёт песню, the speaker is clearly talking about a child. If you used Девушка красиво поёт песню, it would sound like “The young woman (or teen girl) sings the song beautifully.”
Девочка here is the subject of the sentence, the one doing the action (singing). Subjects take the nominative case.
- Nominative singular (subject): девочка – the girl (as subject)
- Accusative singular (direct object): девочку
- Dative singular (indirect object / “to the girl”): девочке
Because the girl is doing the action, we use nominative: Девочка красиво поёт песню.
If she were the object, you’d see девочку, e.g. Я вижу девочку – I see the girl.
Песня (song) is a feminine noun ending in -я in the nominative singular.
Its main forms:
- Nominative singular: песня – a/the song (as subject)
- Accusative singular: песню – a/the song (as direct object)
- Genitive singular: песни
- Dative singular: песне, etc.
In Девочка красиво поёт песню, song is the direct object (the thing being sung), so it takes the accusative case: песню.
Песню is accusative singular feminine.
Typical pattern for many feminine nouns ending in -я in nominative:
- Nominative: -я → песня
- Accusative: -ю → песню
So:
- If it’s a feminine noun ending in -я (like песня, книга is slightly different),
- and it’s the direct object of the verb,
then -ю in песню is a strong hint you’re seeing the accusative case.
Красиво is an adverb, and красивая is an adjective.
- красивый / красивая / красивое / красивые – adjectives, they describe nouns:
- красивая девочка – a beautiful girl (which girl? a beautiful one)
- красиво – adverb, it describes how an action is done (a verb):
- Девочка красиво поёт – The girl sings beautifully (how does she sing? beautifully)
In the sentence, we’re describing how she sings, not what kind of girl she is, so we need the adverb красиво.
You could have both:
- Красивая девочка красиво поёт песню. – The beautiful girl sings the song beautifully.
Stress and pronunciation:
- ДЕвочка – ДЕ-voch-ka (stress on the first syllable: ДЕ-)
- краСИво – kra-СИ-vo (stress on -СИ-)
- поЁт – pa-ЁТ (stress on -ЁТ; ё is always stressed)
- ПЕсню – ПЕ-snyu (stress on ПЕ-)
Important point about ё:
- The letter ё is always stressed and pronounced [yo].
- In everyday writing, Russians often replace ё with е, so you may see поет in print, but it is pronounced and “really is” поёт.
- For learners, it’s useful to always treat поет in this context as поёт = [pa-YOT], not [po-ET].
The infinitive is петь – to sing. But Russian verbs often change their stem in conjugation.
For петь, the present-tense forms are:
- я пою
- ты поёшь
- он / она / оно поёт
- мы поём
- вы поёте
- они поют
So:
- 3rd person singular (he/she/it) takes the ending -ёт,
- and the stem changes to по-.
You never say пеёт; the correct standard form is поёт.
Поет (with е) in print usually just means поёт (with ё), because people often skip the dots on ё.
Поёт is 3rd person singular present tense.
- 1st sg: я пою – I sing
- 2nd sg: ты поёшь – you (sg) sing
- 3rd sg: он/она поёт – he/she sings
Девочка is a 3rd person singular noun (she), so the verb also appears in 3rd singular: поёт.
Note: in the present tense, Russian verbs agree with the subject in person and number, but not in gender.
Gender shows up in the past tense instead:
- Девочка пела песню. – The girl sang a song. (past, feminine form пела)
- Мальчик пел песню. – The boy sang a song. (past, masculine form пел)
Yes.
- Девочка красиво поёт. – The girl sings beautifully / The girl is singing beautifully.
Here it’s implied she is singing something, but the object isn’t specified.
With песню, the sentence is more specific:
- Девочка красиво поёт песню. – The girl sings a song beautifully / The girl is singing a song beautifully.
Both are correct; including песню simply makes the object explicit.
Russian word order is more flexible than English, but it changes emphasis.
Neutral, most common:
- Девочка красиво поёт песню. – neutral focus; just describing what happens.
Possible variants:
Девочка поёт песню красиво.
- Slight emphasis on красиво – She sings the song beautifully (as opposed to badly).
Красиво поёт девочка песню.
- Emphasizes красиво поёт – “Beautifully sings the girl (the song).” Sounds poetic or expressive.
Песню красиво поёт девочка.
- Emphasis on девочка (the subject) – “It is the girl who sings the song beautifully (not someone else).”
All are grammatically possible, but the original Девочка красиво поёт песню is the most straightforward, neutral sentence.
Russian has no articles like a, an, or the.
So Девочка can mean:
- a girl
- the girl
Similarly песню can be:
- a song
- the song
Context or additional words clarify if needed:
- Эта девочка красиво поёт песню. – This girl sings a/the song beautifully.
- Девочка красиво поёт эту песню. – The girl sings this song beautifully.
But in many everyday contexts, Russian simply does not specify the article, and translation into English chooses a or the depending on context.
We need to make both the subject and the verb plural:
- Девочки красиво поют песню.
Changes:
- девочка (sg) → девочки (pl, nominative)
- поёт (3rd person singular) → поют (3rd person plural)
The object песню stays the same because it is still one song (accusative singular).
If you want songs:
- Девочки красиво поют песни. – The girls sing songs beautifully.