Breakdown of Рядом с домом нет большой парковки, поэтому мы часто оставляем машину дальше.
Questions & Answers about Рядом с домом нет большой парковки, поэтому мы часто оставляем машину дальше.
The phrase "рядом с" (next to, near) is a fixed expression that always takes the instrumental case.
- дом (house) – nominative
- с домом (with the house / next to the house) – instrumental
So:
- ✅ рядом с домом
- ❌ рядом дома
Other similar patterns:
- рядом с работой (next to work)
- рядом с окном (next to the window)
- рядом с метро (next to the metro)
If you want genitive without с, you use different prepositions:
- у дома, около дома, возле дома = near the house (genitive)
Russian expresses non-existence with нет + genitive, not with не есть.
- Здесь есть парковка. – There is a parking lot here.
- Здесь нет парковки. – There is no parking lot here.
Using не есть is very rare and usually logical / emphatic (like “A is not B”) rather than existential:
- Это не есть правильно. – This is not (truly) correct. (formal, philosophical)
So for “there is no X”, the natural pattern is: > нет + [X in the genitive]
Because after нет, the noun goes into the genitive case, and the adjective must agree in case, gender and number.
Base forms (nominative, “there is…”):
- большая парковка – a big parking lot
Negative (with нет, genitive feminine singular):
- нет большой парковки
Mini-paradigm for большой (feminine singular):
- Nominative: большая парковка
- Genitive: большой парковки
So большой here is the genitive feminine singular form agreeing with парковки (genitive of парковка).
The word нет (in the sense “there is no…”) requires the genitive case. That’s a standard rule:
- нет времени (no time)
- нет денег (no money)
- нет книги (no book)
- нет парковки (no parking lot)
So:
- есть большая парковка – there is a big parking lot (nominative)
- нет большой парковки – there is no big parking lot (genitive)
That’s why парковка → парковки in this sentence.
English uses the special construction “there is / there are”. Russian doesn’t; it just uses a normal verb “to be / to exist” (есть, or нет in the negative).
Positive:
- Рядом с домом есть большая парковка.
(Literally: Near the house exists a big parking lot.)
Negative:
- Рядом с домом нет большой парковки.
(Literally: Near the house there-is-not [of] a big parking lot.)
So English “there” in “there is/are” is usually not translated at all.
Because домом is instrumental singular of дом:
- дом – nominative (house)
- домом – instrumental (with/by the house)
You need the instrumental because of the preposition с:
- с домом, с братом, с мамой – with / next to the house, brother, mother
In this phrase рядом с домом, it’s not “with the house” in the English sense, but the instrumental form is still used because с governs that case.
Машину is the accusative singular of машина.
- машина – nominative (the car)
Машина стоит во дворе. – The car is in the yard. - машину – accusative (the car as a direct object)
Мы оставляем машину дальше. – We leave the car farther away.
Since машина is a direct object of the verb оставляем, it must be in the accusative.
Russian often omits possessive pronouns (мой, наш, твой, etc.) when the owner is obvious from context, especially:
- body parts: Я мою руки. (literally “I wash hands” = my hands)
- family: Я жду маму. (I’m waiting for my mum)
- personal things: Я оставил машину. (I left the car – obviously my car)
In this sentence:
- мы оставляем машину дальше
The subject is мы (we), so it’s naturally understood as нашу машину (“our car”) unless context suggests otherwise.
You can say нашу машину, but it’s usually only added for emphasis or clarity, not by default.
- оставлять (imperfective) – to leave (habitually, repeatedly, in progress)
- оставить (perfective) – to leave (once, as a completed action)
Оставляем is present tense, 1st person plural, imperfective:
- мы часто оставляем машину дальше
= we often (habitually) leave the car farther away.
If you said мы оставим машину дальше, it would mean:
- “We will leave the car farther away (once, in the future).”
With часто (often), you almost always use the imperfective:
- ✅ мы часто оставляем…
- ❌ мы часто оставим… (sounds wrong in standard Russian)
Yes, дальше is the comparative form of далеко (far), so it usually means “farther / further”.
In this sentence:
- мы часто оставляем машину дальше
→ “we often leave the car farther away”
Russian often leaves the reference point implicit if it’s clear from context. Here, it’s obviously “farther (from the house / from here / from that place)”.
You can be more explicit:
- …оставляем машину дальше от дома. – leave the car farther from the house.
- …оставляем машину чуть дальше. – a bit farther.
But дальше alone is natural and idiomatic when the context is clear.
Both are related to distance, but there’s a nuance:
- дальше – farther / further (neutral comparative of distance)
- подальше – a bit farther / somewhat farther, often with a sense of deliberately choosing a safer or more distant spot
In this sentence, both are possible:
- …оставляем машину дальше. – We park farther away (simple statement of distance).
- …оставляем машину подальше. – We park a bit farther away / at a safer distance.
Подальше often implies a conscious choice to be not too close to something:
- Ставь машину подальше от ворот. – Park the car a bit farther from the gate.
Поэтому means “therefore / so / that’s why” and connects a reason with a result.
Structure:
- Clause 1 (reason), поэтому clause 2 (result)
In the sentence:
- Рядом с домом нет большой парковки, поэтому мы часто оставляем машину дальше.
- Reason: There is no big parking lot near the house
- Result: So we often leave the car farther away
In writing, поэтому is preceded by a comma, because it connects two clauses:
- …, поэтому …
Rough equivalents:
- поэтому ≈ “therefore, so” (slightly more formal than just “so”)
- так что is more conversational and often carries a bit more causal/conclusive tone:
- Нет большой парковки рядом с домом, так что мы оставляем машину дальше.