Learn Hardcore Russian: На завтрак мама подаёт чай, печенье и хлеб с клубничным вареньем. - For breakfast Mom serves tea, cookies, and bread with strawberry jam.

So на завтрак is the natural idiomatic way to say for breakfast.
Для завтрака would sound unusual here; it’s more like “for the purpose of breakfast” and is rarely used that way in everyday speech.

What is the infinitive of подаёт, and why is this form used instead of something like подаст?

Подаёт is 3rd person singular, present tense of the imperfective verb подавать (to serve, to present (repeatedly, as a process)).

Infinitive (impf.): подавать
3rd person sg, present: он/она подаёт

There is also a perfective partner подать:

Infinitive (pf.): подать
3rd person sg, future: он/она подаст

In this sentence, подаёт is used because it describes a regular, repeated action (what mom serves for breakfast in general). Imperfective present is the normal choice for habits and routines in Russian.

If you used подаст, it would be about a single future occasion:
Завтра на завтрак мама подаст чай. – Tomorrow for breakfast mom will serve tea.

Could we use даёт or готовит instead of подаёт? What is the difference?

All three are possible but have different nuances.

даёт = gives
Focus on handing something to someone, not on serving as part of a meal.
- Мама даёт мне чай. – Mom gives me tea.
готовит = cooks / prepares
Focus on making the food, not on bringing it to the table.
- Мама готовит завтрак. – Mom is cooking breakfast.
подаёт = serves (brings to the table as a dish)
Focus on presenting the food / drinks as part of the meal.
- На завтрак мама подаёт чай… – For breakfast mom serves tea…

So подаёт is the best choice here because the sentence describes what appears on the table for breakfast, not what she physically hands to someone or what she is cooking in the kitchen.

What case are чай, печенье и хлеб in, and why do they look like nominative?

Grammatically, they are in the accusative case because they are direct objects of the verb подаёт (Mom serves what? – tea, cookies, and bread).

However, for inanimate masculine and neuter nouns, the accusative = nominative in form. So:

чай – masculine inanimate:
- nominative sg: чай
- accusative sg: чай (same form)
хлеб – masculine inanimate:
- nominative sg: хлеб
- accusative sg: хлеб (same form)
печенье – neuter:
- nominative sg: печенье
- accusative sg: печенье (same form)

So they look nominative, but their function in the sentence is accusative.

Is печенье singular or plural? And what gender is it?

Печенье is neuter singular in standard modern Russian.

It behaves like a mass / collective noun: it usually means “cookies” or “biscuits” in general, not “one cookie”.
Form:
- nominative sg: печенье
- accusative sg: печенье

There is also a form печенья used colloquially as plural (“cookies”), but печенье is far more common, especially in neutral written language.

So in this sentence, печенье = cookies / biscuits in a general, non-counted sense, and it is grammatically singular, neuter.

What case is с клубничным вареньем, and why do we use that case after с?

С клубничным вареньем uses the instrumental case.

Preposition с = “with” in the sense of accompaniment / together with, and it normally takes the instrumental:
- с другом – with a friend
- с молоком – with milk
- с клубничным вареньем – with strawberry jam

Declension of варенье (neuter):

nominative sg: варенье
instrumental sg: вареньем (ending -ем)

The adjective клубничный must agree in gender/number/case with вареньем, so in the instrumental singular neuter it becomes клубничным.

So хлеб с клубничным вареньем = bread with strawberry jam (bread accompanied by jam).

How does клубничным agree with вареньем? What is the pattern?

Клубничным is an adjective modifying вареньем, and it agrees with it in:

gender: neuter
number: singular
case: instrumental

Варенье is a neuter singular noun. In instrumental singular, a typical hard-stem neuter adjective клубничный declines like this:

nominative sg neuter: клубничное варенье – strawberry jam
accusative sg neuter: клубничное варенье
instrumental sg neuter: клубничным вареньем

Pattern: for -ый / -ий adjectives in instrumental singular:

masculine / neuter: -ым / -им → клубничным вареньем
feminine: -ой / -ей

So клубничным вареньем is the regular agreement pattern: with strawberry jam.

Why doesn’t Russian use any articles here? How do I know if it means “tea”, “a tea”, or “some tea”?

Russian has no articles (no a/an, no the). The ideas that English expresses with articles are shown in Russian by:

context,
word order,
stress, or
adding words like этот (this), тот (that), один (one), какой-то (some), etc.

In this sentence:

чай, печенье и хлеб с клубничным вареньем could be translated as:
- tea, cookies, and bread with strawberry jam
- some tea, some cookies, and some bread with strawberry jam
- the tea, the cookies, and the bread with strawberry jam

English must choose an article, but Russian does not. Here, because it’s about a typical breakfast menu, the most natural English is:

For breakfast mom serves tea, cookies, and bread with strawberry jam.

You decide the English article based on what sounds natural in English in that context, not because of any specific Russian word.

Can I change the word order to Мама на завтрак подаёт чай… or Мама подаёт на завтрак чай…? Does the meaning change?

Yes, both are possible, and the basic meaning stays the same. Russian word order is relatively flexible, and changes mostly affect emphasis, not the core meaning.

На завтрак мама подаёт чай…
Mild emphasis on “for breakfast” (setting the time/occasion first).
Мама на завтрак подаёт чай…
Slight emphasis on “Mom”, then specifying for breakfast.
Мама подаёт на завтрак чай…
Emphasis may be more on the action (presents what she serves for breakfast).

All are grammatically correct. In neutral written style, the given version На завтрак мама подаёт… sounds quite natural because it starts by setting the context (for breakfast).

Does мама подаёт mean “Mom serves” (habitually) or “Mom is serving (right now)”? How does Russian express that difference?

The present tense подаёт can mean both:

habitual / repeated: Mom (usually) serves…
actual present: Mom is serving (right now)…

Russian does not have a separate “present continuous” form like English (is serving). Context decides:

As a general statement about breakfast routine, we normally interpret:
- На завтрак мама подаёт чай… = For breakfast mom (usually) serves tea…

To explicitly mark “usually” or “always”, Russian can add adverbs like:

обычно – usually
всегда – always

For example:

Обычно на завтрак мама подаёт чай. – Mom usually serves tea for breakfast.

Why is it На завтрак with accusative, but sometimes на takes the prepositional case (like на столе, “on the table”)?

The preposition на can govern accusative or prepositional, depending on the meaning:

Accusative = direction, goal, purpose:
- на завтрак – for breakfast (purpose / occasion)
- на концерт – to the concert (direction)
- на работу – to work
Prepositional = location (where something is):
- на завтраке – at (during) breakfast (very formal / bookish)
- на столе – on the table
- на работе – at work

In На завтрак мама подаёт…, на + accusative is used because it expresses “for (this meal)”, a kind of purpose/occasion, not a physical location.

Are there other ways to say “for breakfast” in Russian, like к завтраку or за завтраком? How are they different from на завтрак?

Yes, there are other options, with slightly different nuances:

На завтрак – the most common way to say “for breakfast” meaning what is served / eaten as breakfast.
- На завтрак мама подаёт чай.
К завтраку – literally “towards breakfast / by breakfast time”.
Emphasis is often on readiness by a certain time:
- К завтраку мама приготовит пирог. – By breakfast mom will have cooked a pie.
За завтраком – “during breakfast, while having breakfast”.
Focus on what happens at the time of eating:
- За завтраком мы разговариваем. – We talk during breakfast.

In your sentence, на завтрак is exactly right because the point is what is served as the meal, not when it’s ready or what happens during it.