Breakdown of Детский журнал лежит на столе.
Questions & Answers about Детский журнал лежит на столе.
Детский means children’s / for children / child(‑) as an adjective.
- дети = children (noun, plural)
- From дети, Russian forms an adjective детский (detskiy), meaning for children / children’s.
- So детский журнал literally is a children’s magazine / a magazine for children.
Russian very often uses such relational adjectives (formed from nouns) instead of using a preposition like of / for.
All three are possible, but they are used differently:
- детский журнал – the most natural and typical way to say children’s magazine (a magazine intended for children).
- журнал для детей – also magazine for children; a bit more descriptive/explicit, often used in explanations or formal descriptions.
- журнал детей – literally magazine of (some) children; this sounds like the magazine belongs to specific children, not that it’s for children. It’s unusual for the meaning here.
So in your sentence, детский журнал is the idiomatic and standard form.
In Russian, детский is a singular adjective that agrees with the noun журнал:
- журнал – singular, masculine
- детский – singular, masculine, nominative (to match журнал)
The idea “relating to children” is built into the adjective детский itself; it doesn’t have to be plural. Russian grammar cares about agreement with журнал, not with the underlying noun дети from which детский is derived.
English: children’s magazine
Russian: детский журнал (literally: child‑(ren)‑ish magazine)
Лежит is the 3rd person singular of the verb лежать – to lie, to be lying (in a horizontal position).
- лежать – to lie (be lying)
- он / она / оно лежит – he / she / it lies / is lying
So Детский журнал лежит на столе literally means The children’s magazine lies / is lying on the table.
Russian often uses лежать (lying), стоять (standing), сидеть (sitting), висеть (hanging) to describe where objects are located and in which position they are.
In the present tense, Russian normally omits the verb быть (to be) in simple “X is Y / X is somewhere” sentences.
- English: The magazine is on the table.
- Natural Russian: Журнал на столе. or Журнал лежит на столе.
- Saying Журнал есть на столе is possible but marked: it stresses existence, like “There is a magazine on the table (as opposed to there not being one).”
In your sentence, лежит already provides both existence and position, so есть is not needed.
Лежит is present tense. Russian doesn’t distinguish simple and continuous forms in the way English does.
Depending on context, лежит can correspond to:
- lies (simple present)
- is lying (present continuous)
Here, лежит is best translated as is lying, but grammatically it is just a plain present tense verb.
It’s a case choice:
- на
- prepositional case = location (where something is)
- на
- accusative case = direction (onto / to)
In your sentence:
- на столе – on the table (location, where the magazine is)
- на стол – onto the table (direction, where to something is being put)
Since the magazine is already there, you need на столе (prepositional case).
Стол (table) is a masculine noun ending in a consonant.
In the prepositional singular, most masculine nouns like this take the ending ‑е:
- Nominative: стол – table
- Prepositional: на столе – on the table
- Patterns: дом → в доме, пол → на полу (here is a slight irregularity), but стол → на столе is regular.
So стол → столе is simply the regular prepositional case form.
Both use the prepositional case, but the preposition changes the meaning:
- на столе – on the table (on the surface)
- в столе – in the table (inside it, e.g., in a drawer)
For a magazine lying on top, на столе is correct.
Журнал is masculine.
Consequences:
Adjective agreement
- Masculine nominative singular adjective: детский
- So: детский журнал (not детская журнал or детское журнал)
Verb form
- 3rd person singular present for any singular subject (masc/fem/neut): лежит
- If it were plural (журналы), you would use лежат:
- Детские журналы лежат на столе.
So gender shows itself mainly in the adjective form here; the verb form only changes with number (singular vs plural), not gender.
Yes, that word order is fully correct:
Детский журнал лежит на столе.
Neutral focus; often the subject (детский журнал) is treated as known/new depending on context.На столе лежит детский журнал.
Slight emphasis on на столе (“On the table, there is a children’s magazine”). This order often introduces new information at the end (детский журнал).
Both are grammatical. Russian word order is flexible and often used to show what is being emphasized rather than to show who is subject/object.
Yes, На столе детский журнал is possible and grammatical. It sounds like:
- On the table (there is) a children’s magazine.
This is a shorter, more neutral way just to say that the object is there, without mentioning its position (lying vs standing, etc.). Adding лежит adds more detail about its physical position and sometimes a bit more vividness.
You’d make the noun and adjective plural, and change the verb:
Singular:
Детский журнал лежит на столе.
– A / the children’s magazine is lying on the table.Plural:
Детские журналы лежат на столе.
– Children’s magazines are lying on the table.
Changes:
- детский → детские (adjective, plural)
- журнал → журналы (noun, plural)
- лежит → лежат (verb, 3rd person plural)
Yes, it can be a false friend for English speakers:
- журнал usually means magazine (periodical for general readers).
- It can also mean journal in some contexts (scientific journal, etc.), but in everyday speech журнал = magazine.
In your sentence, the natural translation is children’s magazine, not children’s journal.