Questions & Answers about На столе стоит мой монитор.
Russian often uses position verbs instead of the English verb “to be” when talking about where physical objects are:
- стоять – to stand (vertical position, on a base/legs)
- лежать – to lie (horizontal position)
- сидеть – to sit (often for people/animals, or objects “sitting” on something)
A monitor is seen as standing upright on its base, so Russians normally say:
- На столе стоит мой монитор. – My monitor is (standing) on the table.
You can say Мой монитор на столе, without a verb, in the present tense. That’s also correct and fairly common, especially in neutral or slightly informal speech. Using стоит just adds a more explicit sense of physical position and often sounds a bit more descriptive or natural.
Стоять literally means “to stand” in a vertical position. In this sentence:
- стоит = 3rd person singular, present tense of стоять
- It describes how and where the monitor is positioned: upright, resting on its base.
In Russian, using стоять in such sentences:
- Emphasizes that the object is stationary and upright.
- Is the default choice for many objects that have a stand, legs, or a clearly vertical orientation (monitor, TV, wardrobe, bottle, etc.).
So На столе стоит мой монитор is literally “On the table stands my monitor,” but is simply translated as “My monitor is on the table.”
The preposition на can take two different cases:
Prepositional case (где? – where?)
Used for location (no movement):- на столе – on the table
- на стене – on the wall
Accusative case (куда? – where to?)
Used for direction (movement onto something):- положить на стол – to put (something) on the table
- повесить на стену – to hang (something) on the wall
In На столе стоит мой монитор, you are describing location (where the monitor is), so you must use the prepositional case: на столе, not на стол.
Стол (table) is a masculine noun. In this sentence it is in the prepositional case, which often answers the question где? (“where?”).
Declension of стол (singular, main cases):
- Nominative: стол – the table (subject)
- Genitive: стола
- Dative: столу
- Accusative: стол
- Prepositional: столе – on/about the table
Because of на + “where?” (static location), you get на столе: “on the table.”
In the sentence На столе стоит мой монитор:
- мой монитор is the subject of the sentence – it is the thing that is “standing.”
- стоит is an intransitive verb here (no direct object), so the thing that is doing the “standing” is in the nominative case.
So you keep the dictionary form:
- Nominative: монитор – a/the monitor
If you changed the sentence to have монитор as an object, it would then change case:
- Я вижу монитор. – I see the monitor. (Here монитор is accusative, which happens to look the same for inanimate masculine nouns.)
Russian possessive pronouns agree with the gender, number, and case of the noun they modify.
Singular forms of “my” in the nominative:
- мой – masculine (e.g. мой монитор, мой стол)
- моя – feminine (e.g. моя книга, моя лампа)
- моё – neuter (e.g. моё окно, моё письмо)
Монитор ends in a consonant and is grammatically masculine, so you must say:
- мой монитор, not моя монитор.
Both are grammatically correct:
На столе стоит мой монитор.
- Starts with the place: “On the table stands my monitor.”
- Focus is slightly more on the location, then what is there.
Мой монитор стоит на столе.
- Starts with the object: “My monitor is standing on the table.”
- Focus is a bit more on the monitor, then where it is.
Russian word order is relatively flexible and often used to highlight what is new or important information in context. Neutral, common variant: Мой монитор стоит на столе.
The version starting with На столе may sound like you’re contrasting this location with another, or answering “Where is your monitor?”
Grammatically, На столе есть мой монитор is possible, but it sounds unnatural in most contexts.
Reasons:
- есть in such sentences is used mainly in existential constructions: stating that something exists somewhere.
- На столе есть книга. – There is a book on the table.
- With a specific, definite item like мой монитор, Russians strongly prefer a position verb:
- На столе стоит мой монитор.
Using есть with a clearly defined thing (my monitor, this phone, that computer) usually feels redundant or stylistically odd. It’s most natural with indefinite or non-specific things (some, any, at least one).
Use depends on how the object is oriented:
стоит (from стоять – to stand)
- For objects considered upright, on a base or legs:
- На столе стоит монитор / лампа / бутылка / ваза.
лежит (from лежать – to lie)
- For objects considered lying horizontally:
- На столе лежит книга / телефон / ручка / бумага.
Some objects could go either way depending on how they are placed:
- A phone upright in a stand: Телефон стоит на столе.
- A phone flat on the table: Телефон лежит на столе.
A monitor is normally imagined as standing on its stand, so стоит is the natural choice.
Yes, that’s correct and common:
- Мой монитор на столе.
In the present tense, Russian often omits “to be” (есть / быть) in such simple “X is Y” statements. That sentence is fully grammatical and natural, especially in neutral or informal speech.
Differences:
- Мой монитор на столе. – neutral “My monitor is on the table.”
- Мой монитор стоит на столе. – adds a physical-position nuance (“is standing”) and can feel a bit more descriptive/visual.
Both work; context and style determine which is better.
Стоит is:
- Present tense
- Imperfective aspect
- 3rd person singular of стоять
In this sentence it simply describes a current, ongoing state: the monitor is currently standing there. There’s no special aspectual nuance beyond that; it’s the normal way to state where an object is at the moment.
Past/future examples:
- Вчера мой монитор стоял на полу. – Yesterday my monitor stood / was on the floor.
- Завтра мой монитор будет стоять на другом столе. – Tomorrow my monitor will stand / be on another table.
Stresses (stressed syllables in CAPITALS):
- на – na (one syllable, short, usually unstressed in speech, but important as a preposition)
- столе́ – sta-LE (stress on -ле́)
- стои́т – sta-EET (stress on -и́т)
- мой – MOY (one syllable, stressed)
- монито́р – ma-nee-TOR (stress on -то́р)
Rough phonetic approximation:
na sta-LE sta-EET moy ma-nee-TOR
In connected speech, на столе стоит flows together quite smoothly: [na staLÉ staÍT].