Breakdown of Когда монитор слишком яркий, глаза устают быстрее.
Questions & Answers about Когда монитор слишком яркий, глаза устают быстрее.
Russian usually drops the verb “to be” (быть) in the present tense when it just links a subject and a description.
- English: The monitor is too bright.
- Literal Russian structure: Monitor too bright.
(Монитор слишком яркий.)
In the present tense, you normally do not say монитор есть слишком яркий. That sounds unnatural in everyday speech. You only use forms of быть in:
- past / future: монитор был / будет ярким
- special emphatic or formal constructions
Both слишком and очень intensify adjectives, but they’re different:
- очень яркий = very bright (high degree, but neutral)
- слишком яркий = too bright (excessive, more than is good/comfortable)
In this sentence we’re talking about a negative effect (eyes get tired), so слишком is correct: the brightness is excessive, not just strong.
Russian often omits possessive pronouns (мой, твой, его etc.) when the owner is obvious from context.
Here, it’s clearly your / one’s own eyes, not someone else’s. So:
- Глаза устают быстрее.
literally: Eyes get tired faster.
If you say мои глаза устают, it’s also correct, but it sounds more specific or more emphatic, as if you contrast your eyes with someone else’s or stress your personal experience.
The verb is уставать / устать (to get tired, to become tired). It is not reflexive in Russian:
- Я устаю. – I get tired.
- Мы быстро устаём. – We get tired quickly.
- Глаза устают. – Eyes get tired.
There is no form устаются in standard Russian. The “getting tired” is just a state change of the subject; you don’t mark it with -ся here.
Russian has:
- глаз – singular, nominative: an eye
- глаза – plural, nominative (and also accusative): eyes
- глаз – plural, genitive: of (the) eyes
In this sentence, глаза is the subject of the main clause, so it must be in the nominative plural:
- Кто/что? – глаза (subject)
- Глаза устают. – Eyes get tired.
If you saw something like нет глаз (there are no eyes), that would be the genitive plural.
- устают is present tense, 3rd person plural of уставать (imperfective).
- устанут is future tense, 3rd person plural of устать (perfective).
In general statements, rules, or regular tendencies, Russian prefers the imperfective present:
- Когда монитор слишком яркий, глаза устают быстрее.
When the monitor is too bright, eyes get tired more quickly.
(This is something that typically happens.)
If you said устанут, it would sound like a more specific future event:
- Если сегодня будешь работать за слишком ярким монитором, глаза устанут.
If you work at a monitor that’s too bright today, your eyes will get tired.
Yes. Быстрее is the comparative form of the adverb быстро (quickly).
- быстро – quickly
- быстрее – more quickly, faster
Formally, быстрее can be:
- comparative of the adjective быстрый (faster)
- comparative of the adverb быстро (more quickly)
In глаза устают быстрее, it modifies the verb устают, so it functions as an adverbial comparative: eyes get tired more quickly.
Yes, Russian word order is fairly flexible, and all of these are possible:
- Глаза устают быстрее. – neutral, standard.
- Глаза быстрее устают. – slight emphasis on how they get tired (more quickly), but still very natural.
- Быстрее устают глаза. – more emphasis on быстрее and somewhat on глаза; could sound a bit more stylistic or expressive.
The original глаза устают быстрее is the most neutral and textbook-like, but the others are grammatically correct.
You can, but there’s a nuance:
- Когда монитор слишком яркий… – more neutral, basic description: when the monitor is too bright…
- Когда слишком яркий монитор… – the focus shifts a bit to the monitor as being the problematic thing. In some contexts this can sound more expressive, like “When it’s the monitor that is too bright…”
Both are grammatical. For a simple, neutral sentence about eye strain, Когда монитор слишком яркий… is more typical.
Both когда and если can sometimes be translated as “when,” but they’re not identical:
когда = when(ever), referring to time, often for general situations or repeated events
Когда монитор слишком яркий, глаза устают быстрее.
Whenever / when the monitor is too bright, eyes get tired faster.если = if, referring to condition
Если монитор слишком яркий, глаза устают быстрее.
If the monitor is too bright, eyes get tired faster.
In practice, for a general statement like this, both are possible, but когда sounds more like a regular, typical situation tied to time; если frames it a bit more as a conditional (“in case that happens”).
You’re right: Russian can use то after a когда/если clause:
- Когда монитор слишком яркий, то глаза устают быстрее.
But in modern standard speech, то is usually optional and often omitted, especially in simple, neutral sentences. Using то:
- may sound a bit more emphatic,
- or a bit more old-fashioned / bookish, depending on style.
So the version without то is more natural:
- Когда монитор слишком яркий, глаза устают быстрее. ✅
- Когда монитор слишком яркий, то глаза устают быстрее. – correct, but less common in everyday speech.
Yes, you do pronounce the г. Approximate pronunciation: [kag-DA].
Details:
- ко – like ko in cold.
- гд – г is a voiced [g], and д is [d]. Together they sound like gd.
- а – like a in father.
So когда is ka-gda, with stress on the second syllable: когда́.