Ночной город тихий и красивый.

the city

Breakdown of Ночной город тихий и красивый.

• красивый: beautiful
• и: and
• тихий: quiet

Questions & Answers about Ночной город тихий и красивый.

Why is there no word for is in this sentence?

Russian normally leaves out есть (the verb to be) in the present tense when linking a subject with a noun or an adjective.

So Ночной город тихий и красивый. literally looks like:

• Ночной город – night city
• тихий и красивый – quiet and beautiful

There is an invisible is between город and тихий in the meaning, but Russian just does not say it in the present tense. You only use forms of быть (to be) explicitly in the past (был, была, было, были) and future (будет, будут), or for emphasis/contrast in the present.

What case and gender is город, and how do we know?

Город is:

• Masculine – you can usually tell from the ending -д with no vowel (typical masculine pattern), and the dictionary form of most masculine nouns ends in a consonant.
• Nominative singular – it is the subject of the sentence and has the basic dictionary form with no case ending attached. In a simple X is Y sentence, both X (subject) and Y (predicate adjective) are in the nominative case.

So Ночной город тихий и красивый. is a nominative pattern: subject город + predicate adjectives тихий, красивый, all masculine nominative singular.

Why do the adjectives end in -ой, -ий, and -ый: ?