Breakdown of С этим одноклассником мы до сих пор переписываемся по электронной почте.
Questions & Answers about С этим одноклассником мы до сих пор переписываемся по электронной почте.
Одноклассником is in the instrumental case (singular masculine, ending -ом).
The preposition с in the sense of with (someone) normally requires the instrumental case:
- с кем? – with whom? → с этим одноклассником – with this classmate
So:
- Nominative: одноклассник (classmate – subject form)
- Instrumental: одноклассником (with a classmate)
You use the instrumental here because the sentence literally starts: With this classmate, we still correspond …
Этим одноклассником is also in the instrumental case, because of с.
The demonstrative этот declines:
- Nominative: этот одноклассник (this classmate – as subject)
- Instrumental: этим одноклассником (with this classmate)
So both words have to match in case:
- с этим одноклассником – with this classmate
Using с этот одноклассник would be incorrect because этот and одноклассник would be in the nominative, not the instrumental required by с.
До сих пор literally means up to this time / up to now and in this sentence it corresponds to English still.
So мы до сих пор переписываемся ≈ we still correspond / we are still writing to each other.
Nuances:
- до сих пор often emphasizes the surprising continuation of a situation: “even now, after all this time”.
- всё ещё also means still, and here мы всё ещё переписываемся would be fine too, with very similar meaning. До сих пор can sound a bit more like “right up until now, and this is noteworthy.”
Переписываемся comes from переписываться, a reflexive (or more precisely, reciprocal) verb. The -ся here shows that the action is mutual / done to each other.
- переписывать – to rewrite (something), to copy something
- переписываться – to correspond with someone, to write to each other regularly
So:
- Мы переписываемся – we correspond (we write to each other)
- Мы переписываем письма – we are rewriting letters (totally different meaning)
Without -ся, переписывать does not mean “to correspond”; it means to rewrite or copy. For “correspond with someone,” you almost always need the reflexive переписываться (or a phrase like писать друг другу).
Переписываться is imperfective. It describes an ongoing, repeated, or habitual action: regular correspondence.
- мы переписываемся – we (regularly) correspond / exchange emails
The corresponding perfective is переписаться:
- мы переписались – we exchanged messages (and the exchange is viewed as completed)
In your sentence, you want to talk about an ongoing state that started in the past and continues till now, so the imperfective present переписываемся is exactly right.
По электронной почте literally means by electronic mail or via email.
- По here governs the dative case.
- Электронная почта (nominative) → электронной почте (dative singular).
So the structure is:
- по чему? – by what means? → по электронной почте – by email
Russian often uses по + dative to express a communication channel:
- по телефону – by phone
- по радио – on the radio
- по телевизору – on TV
- по электронной почте – by email
Saying через электронную почту is possible but less idiomatic here; по электронной почте is the standard phrase for by email.
Yes. Russian word order is flexible. Some natural alternatives:
- Мы до сих пор переписываемся с этим одноклассником по электронной почте.
- Мы с этим одноклассником до сих пор переписываемся по электронной почте.
Your original:
- С этим одноклассником мы до сих пор переписываемся по электронной почте.
Starting the sentence with С этим одноклассником puts extra emphasis on this classmate as the topic: “As for this particular classmate – we still correspond by email.” It’s a stylistic choice, not a grammatical necessity.
In standard written Russian, you generally keep the pronoun мы here:
- С этим одноклассником мы до сих пор переписываемся.
Dropping мы (С этим одноклассником до сих пор переписываемся) can occur in informal speech or very colloquial writing, but it sounds somewhat incomplete or stylized. Russian can omit subject pronouns when the verb form clearly shows the person, but sentence-initial prepositional phrases like с этим одноклассником often “invite” an explicit subject pronoun after them to avoid ambiguity or awkwardness.
So for learners, it’s better to keep мы.
Both are possible, but they differ slightly in focus:
- переписываемся – we keep up a correspondence, an ongoing exchange of messages. It’s a single verb that already implies “to each other.”
- пишем друг другу (по электронной почте) – we write to each other, focusing more on the act of writing rather than the idea of an established correspondence.
Nuance:
Мы до сих пор переписываемся по электронной почте.
→ Suggests a regular, ongoing exchange of emails, almost like “we’re still in touch by email.”Мы до сих пор пишем друг другу по электронной почте.
→ Very similar, but sounds a bit more like individual acts of writing rather than a general “correspondence” relationship.
In most contexts, they are interchangeable, but переписываться is the compact, idiomatic choice.
Одноклассник is someone who was in the same school class as you (literally, “one-class-person”).
Typical usage:
- Children or teenagers in school (primary, secondary).
- It usually refers to being in the same grade/form and same group.
For university, Russians usually say:
- однокурсник – someone from the same year / cohort at university.
So:
- Former school classmate → одноклассник
- Former university coursemate (same year in your program) → однокурсник
In casual English both are often translated as classmate, but the Russian words distinguish school vs. university.
No, this particular sentence does not show the speaker’s gender. All the forms here are:
- мы переписываемся – 1st person plural, no gender
- одноклассником – refers to the classmate, whose gender could be inferred from context or changed to одноклассницей (female classmate) if needed, but that still doesn’t show the speaker’s gender.
Whether the speaker is male or female, the sentence stays:
- С этим одноклассником мы до сих пор переписываемся по электронной почте.
To show the classmate’s gender, you could say:
- С этой одноклассницей мы до сих пор переписываемся по электронной почте. – with this (female) classmate…
But the speaker’s gender is not encoded here at all.
Переписываться implies a mutual correspondence: both sides write to each other, at least to some meaningful extent.
If you want to stress that only you write, or the exchange is very one-sided, you would usually avoid переписываться and say something like:
- Я иногда пишу этому однокласснику по электронной почте. – I sometimes write to this classmate by email.
- Я иногда отправляю ему письма по электронной почте, но он редко отвечает. – I sometimes send him emails, but he rarely replies.
Your original sentence with переписываемся suggests a normal, reciprocal email correspondence.