Вокруг дома растут деревья.

Around the house trees are growing.

Breakdown of Вокруг дома растут деревья.

• дом: the house
• дерево: the tree
• расти: to grow
• вокруг: around

Questions & Answers about Вокруг дома растут деревья.

Why is it дома and not дом after вокруг?

Because вокруг (around) always requires the genitive case.

• дом = nominative (dictionary form)
• дома = genitive singular of дом

Many Russian prepositions require a specific case. Вокруг is one of those that always takes the genitive:

• вокруг дома – around the house
• вокруг школы – around the school
• вокруг города – around the city

So you must say вокруг дома, never вокруг дом.

Is вокруг always the same as English around?

Most of the time, yes, but there are nuances.

Вокруг is mainly spatial: something is placed or happens around something else.

• вокруг дома – around the house
• вокруг стола – around the table

It can also be figurative, like English around:

• вокруг этого вопроса много споров – there is a lot of argument around this question

However, Russian also has other “around/near”-type words:

• около – near, by (closer to near than around):
  около дома стоит машина – A car is standing near the house.
• возле – near, next to:
  возле дома растут деревья – Trees grow near the house.
• кругом – (colloquial) all around, everywhere around:
  кругом лес – There is forest all around.

So вокруг usually implies more of an encircling/around on all sides idea than just “near.”

Can I say Деревья растут вокруг дома instead? Is there a difference?

Yes, you can. Both are grammatically correct:

• Вокруг дома растут деревья.
• Деревья растут вокруг дома.

The difference is mainly in word order and emphasis:

• Вокруг дома растут деревья.
  The phrase вокруг дома comes first, so the location is the starting point of the sentence (what we’re talking about), and деревья is the new/important information.

• Деревья растут вокруг дома.
  The subject деревья is given first, so we start talking about trees, and then specify where they grow.

In everyday speech, both are very natural; context decides which flow sounds more natural. Grammatically, they mean the same thing.

Why isn’t there a word for “there are” in the Russian sentence?

Russian often doesn’t use an explicit equivalent of “there is / there are”.

English:
There are trees growing around the house.

Russian usually just starts with either:

• the location
  • what exists there:
    Вокруг дома растут деревья. – Literally: Around the house grow trees.
• or the thing
  • where it is:
    Деревья растут вокруг дома. – Trees grow around the house.

Russian can use есть to mean there is/are, but not in this particular structure with растут. You would use есть in simpler “existence” sentences:

• Вокруг дома есть деревья. – There are trees around the house.
  (Just stating that they exist there, not focusing on the process of growing.)

In your original sentence, the verb растут already gives the main information, so есть is not used.

What tense/aspect is растут? Does it mean “are growing” or “grow”?

Растут is:

• present tense
• 3rd person plural
• of the imperfective verb расти (to grow)

Russian present tense of an imperfective verb can cover both:

• an action happening right now (are growing)
• a general, habitual action (grow)

So Вокруг дома растут деревья can be understood as:

• Trees are growing around the house. (they’re currently growing)
• Trees grow around the house. (this is generally true)

Context usually makes it clear which nuance is intended.

What is the infinitive of растут, and how does this verb conjugate?

The infinitive is расти – to grow.

Present tense conjugation (imperfective):

• я расту – I grow / am growing
• ты растёшь – you grow
• он / она / оно растёт – he / she / it grows
• мы растём – we grow
• вы растёте – you (pl./formal) grow
• они растут – they grow

Past tense (imperfective):

• он рос – he grew / was growing
• она росла – she grew
• оно росло – it grew
• они росли – they grew

Perfective partner (meaning “to grow up / to have grown” as a completed result) is вырасти:

• он вырос – he (has) grown (up)

How would the sentence change if there was only one tree around the house?

You would make both the noun and the verb singular:

• Вокруг дома растёт дерево. – A tree grows / is growing around the house.

Changes:

• деревья (trees – nominative plural) → дерево (tree – nominative singular)
• растут (they grow) → растёт (it grows)

The prepositional phrase вокруг дома stays exactly the same, because the house is still one house in the genitive singular.

Why is деревья in the nominative case here?

Деревья is the subject of the sentence, and in Russian the subject is normally in the nominative case.

Word roles:

• Вокруг дома – adverbial phrase of place (around the house)
  
  • дома is genitive because of the preposition вокруг
• растут – verb (they grow)
• деревья – subject (trees) → nominative plural

Even though деревья appears at the end, it is still the subject.
Russian relies more on cases and verb agreement to show who is doing what, and less on fixed word order.

Is вокруг дома like “around of the house” in English?

Structurally, yes, it plays the same role as English “around the house”, but grammatically it works differently.

• In English you say: around + the house
• In Russian: вокруг + genitive, no article

So:

• вокруг дома literally is around (of) house – where the “of” idea is built into the genitive case (дома).

You don’t add another preposition like of; the genitive ending -а on дом already expresses that relationship.

Could I say около дома растут деревья instead of вокруг дома растут деревья?

Yes, but it changes the nuance slightly.

• вокруг дома растут деревья – trees are distributed around the house, typically on several sides, giving more of a “ring around it” feeling.
• около дома растут деревья – trees grow near/by the house, but not necessarily around it on all sides.

Both are perfectly correct; you choose based on whether you want to express around or simply near.

Can the word order be Деревья вокруг дома растут or Растут деревья вокруг дома?

Yes, both are possible, though some orders are more natural than others.

All these are grammatically correct:

1. Вокруг дома растут деревья.
2. Деревья растут вокруг дома.
3. Деревья вокруг дома растут.
4. Растут деревья вокруг дома.

Nuances:

• (1) and (2) are the most neutral and common.
• (3) Деревья вокруг дома растут can sound like you are contrasting these trees with some other trees (for example, The trees around the house do grow, but the ones in the field don’t).
• (4) Растут деревья вокруг дома often sounds a bit more poetic or expressive, starting with the verb to highlight the existence/appearance: There grow trees around the house.

Russian allows flexible word order for emphasis and style, as long as the cases and verb agreement are clear.

How do you pronounce Вокруг дома растут деревья? Where is the stress?

Stresses:

• вокру́г – stress on у
• до́ма – stress on the о
• расту́т – stress on у
• дере́вья – stress on the е in the second syllable: де-ре-вья

Approximate breakdown:

• во-кру́г
• до́-ма
• ра-сту́т
• де-ре́-вья

The tricky word for many learners is дере́вья:

• It has two syllables + a soft consonant cluster at the end.
• The final -вья is like “v-ya” pronounced together, with в softened by я.

Why doesn’t Russian use articles like “the” in “the house” or “the trees”?

Russian has no articles (no a/an, no the).

Definiteness or indefiniteness is understood from context, word order, and sometimes extra words (like этот – this, тот – that, какой-то – some).

So Вокруг дома растут деревья can correspond to several English versions:

• There are trees growing around the house.
• Trees grow around the house.
• There are trees growing around a house.

If it’s important to say this house or those trees, you would add a demonstrative:

• Вокруг этого дома растут деревья. – Trees grow around this house.
• Вокруг дома растут эти деревья. – These trees grow around the house.