Breakdown of Мы собираемся отметить выпускной вечер дома.
Questions & Answers about Мы собираемся отметить выпускной вечер дома.
The verb собираться literally means to gather / to get ready / to intend.
In the form мы собираемся it often expresses an intention about the future, very close to English we are going to (plan, intention), not physical movement.
So:
- Мы собираемся отметить… = We are going to celebrate… / We intend to celebrate…
- It is present tense in form, but often refers to a future action based on a plan or decision.
All three are future-related, but with different nuances.
- Мы собираемся отметить… – focus on intention/plan: We are going to celebrate… / We plan to celebrate…
- Мы будем отмечать… – future continuous/imperfective: We will be celebrating… (emphasis on the process, duration, or repeated action).
- Мы отметим… – simple perfective future: We will celebrate… (focus on the fact that the event will take place and be completed).
In this sentence, мы собираемся отметить sounds like talking about a decided plan for a single future celebration.
Отметить is perfective and usually describes a single, complete celebration/event.
Отмечать is imperfective and focuses on the process or repeated action.
- Мы собираемся отметить выпускной вечер дома. – one specific celebration, seen as a completed event.
- Мы будем отмечать выпускной вечер дома. – emphasizes that we’ll be in the process of celebrating (for some time), or it can sound a bit more descriptive/ongoing.
For a concrete, one-time party, отметить is the most natural choice.
Отметить takes a direct object in the accusative case: отметить что?.
Выпускной вечер here is the direct object in the accusative.
- Nominative: выпускной вечер
- Accusative (inanimate masculine): also выпускной вечер
Since inanimate masculine nouns look the same in nominative and accusative, the form doesn’t change, but the function is object of the verb.
Literally, выпускной вечер means graduation evening.
In many contexts it corresponds to what English speakers call prom or graduation party / graduation celebration, depending on the country and school tradition.
It is a set phrase in Russian for the end-of-school celebration, usually for graduating students.
- Выпускной on its own (as a noun in colloquial speech) often means the graduation event / prom:
- Мы готовимся к выпускному. = We’re getting ready for the prom / graduation party.
- Выпускной вечер – a more formal full phrase: graduation evening / graduation party.
- Выпускной бал – literally graduation ball; emphasizes the ball/dance aspect (somewhat more formal or old-fashioned-sounding, but still used).
All three can refer to the same event; the choice depends on style and nuance.
Russian has no articles (no a/an or the).
Specificity is usually understood from context, word order, and sometimes from other words (like demonstratives: этот выпускной вечер = this graduation party).
So отметить выпускной вечер can mean celebrate the graduation party or celebrate a graduation party, depending on the situation; the sentence itself does not mark that distinction grammatically.
These are different forms with different meanings:
- дома = at home (location, no preposition):
- Мы будем дома. = We will be at home.
- в доме = in the house / inside the building (more literal interior location):
- Could mean “inside the house” as a physical space.
- домой = (to) home (direction, motion towards home):
- Мы идём домой. = We’re going home.
In отметить выпускной вечер дома, you want at home, so дома is correct.
Yes, you can move дома without changing the core meaning:
- Мы собираемся дома отметить выпускной вечер.
- Мы дома собираемся отметить выпускной вечер.
Russian word order is relatively flexible. Moving дома can slightly shift emphasis (for example, stressing where more strongly if it’s close to the beginning), but the basic meaning we are going to celebrate at home remains the same. The original order, with дома at the end, is very natural and neutral.
Not always, but very often when it means to intend / to be going to:
- Мы собираемся поехать. – We are going to go.
- Он собирается переехать. – He is going to move.
However, собираться also has another common meaning: to gather / to assemble:
- Мы собираемся у входа. – We are gathering at the entrance.
- Гости собрались в гостиной. – The guests gathered in the living room.
So with an infinitive, it usually expresses intention; without an infinitive and with a place, it usually means to gather.
The ending -ся marks the verb as reflexive. In собираться, it has become part of the normal dictionary form and doesn’t always mean direct self-action like “to collect oneself”.
- собирать = to collect, to gather (something)
- собираться = to get ready / to intend / to gather (oneself or as a group)
In this sentence, собираться in мы собираемся отметить means we intend / we are going to, and the reflexive marker is just part of that verb’s meaning; you don’t add a separate reflexive pronoun like in English.
Yes, that is grammatically possible: Собираемся отметить выпускной вечер дома.
In Russian, the subject pronoun is often omitted because the verb ending -емся already shows “we”.
However, including мы is very common and sounds neutral and clear. Omitting it can sound a bit more casual or rely more on context to know who “we” is.
Both can mean to celebrate, but with a nuance:
- отметить – literally to mark, often used for marking/celebrating a specific occasion or date; sounds very natural for one-time events:
- отметить день рождения / выпускной / праздник
- праздновать – also to celebrate, but can sound a bit more general or “festive”, and is often used with holidays:
- праздновать Новый год / Рождество / победу
You could say Мы собираемся праздновать выпускной вечер дома, but отметить выпускной вечер is the more typical collocation.