Learn Hardcore Russian: Со временем я полюбил этот город.

Russian has two spoken forms of the preposition с (“with/from”): с and со.
Со is used before certain consonant clusters to make pronunciation easier and to sound natural, for example:

со временем – over time
со вторника – from Tuesday
со мной – with me
со всех сторон – from all sides

So с временем is grammatically the same preposition, but it sounds awkward and is effectively not used; the normal phrase is со временем.

Does Со временем mean the same as English “in time” (as in “We’ll get there in time for the movie”)?

No. Со временем means “gradually, as time passed / over time”, referring to a slow change.

It does not have the “before it’s too late / before the deadline” meaning that English “in time” can have.

Examples:

Со временем я полюбил этот город. – Over time I came to love this city.
Со временем всё изменится. – With time, everything will change.

If you want the “before it’s too late” idea in Russian, you’d use other phrases, e.g.:

успеть вовремя – to be on time
сделать что‑то вовремя – to do something in time.

Why is it полюбил, not just любил?

Russian distinguishes imperfective and perfective aspects.

любить (imperfective) – to love (a state, ongoing feeling)
полюбить (perfective) – to come to love, to start loving, to fall in love with (focus on the beginning of the feeling)

So:

Со временем я полюбил этот город.
= Over time I came to love this city (the love appeared / developed over time).

If you said:

Со временем я любил этот город.

it would sound wrong/unnatural, because любил is about a state that already exists, while со временем talks about a change developing over time. For that change, Russian naturally uses полюбил.

What tense and aspect is полюбил, and is there a present tense form?

Полюбил is:

past tense
masculine singular
perfective aspect

Perfective verbs in Russian usually do not have a real present tense. Their so‑called “present” forms refer to the future.

For полюбить:

Я полюбил этот город. – I came to love this city. (past, perfective)
Я полюблю этот город. – I will come to love this city. (future, perfective)

To say “I love this city” as a current state, you use the imperfective:

Я люблю этот город. – I love this city. (present, imperfective)

How would I say “I used to love this city” or “I loved this city (for some time)” in Russian?

For “used to love / loved for some time,” you use the imperfective past of любить:

Я любил этот город. – I loved this city / I used to love this city.

(Spoken by a man; a woman would say я любила.)

Compare:

Я любил этот город. – I loved it (state over a period, maybe not anymore).
Я полюбил этот город. – I came to love it (focus on the moment or process of starting to love it).

In English we say “fall in love with this city.” Why is there no “with” (с) in Russian?

The difference comes from how the Russian verb полюбить governs its object.

English: fall in love with [object]
Russian: полюбить [кого? / что?] in the accusative case, without a preposition.

So we say:

полюбить этот город – to fall in love with this city
(literally: “to come to love this city”)

Using a preposition like с here would be wrong:

✗ полюбить с этим городом – incorrect
✓ полюбить этот город – correct

Why is город in the form город, not города or something else?

Город is a masculine, inanimate noun.

Its relevant forms:

Nominative singular: город – a/the city
Accusative singular (inanimate): город – same as nominative
Genitive singular: города – of the city
Nominative plural: города – cities

The verb полюбить takes a direct object in the accusative:

полюбить кого? / что? – to come to love whom / what?

So we need accusative singular, which for inanimate город is город:

я полюбил (кого? что?) этот город – I came to love this city.

Why is it полюбил, not полюбила or полюбили? How does this agree with я?

In the Russian past tense, the verb agrees with:

number (singular/plural)
gender (if singular)

Я itself doesn’t show gender, but the speaker has a gender, and the verb reflects that:

Man speaking:
Я полюбил этот город. – I (male) came to love this city.
Woman speaking:
Я полюбила этот город. – I (female) came to love this city.
Group speaking:
Мы полюбили этот город. – We came to love this city.

So полюбил is masculine singular; the sentence as written implies a male speaker.

Can we change the word order? For example, Я со временем полюбил этот город or Этот город я полюбил со временем?

Yes, Russian word order is flexible, and all of these are possible:

Со временем я полюбил этот город.
Neutral, typical; light emphasis on “over time” at the beginning.
Я со временем полюбил этот город.
Very similar meaning; slightly more focus on я (“I, in time, came to love this city”).
Я полюбил этот город со временем.
Adverbial phrase at the end; can sound like you’re adding “eventually / after some time” as a final remark.
Этот город я полюбил со временем.
Emphasis on “this city” (maybe in contrast to other cities):
“This city – I only came to love it over time.”

All are correct; the difference is nuance and emphasis rather than grammar.

What is the difference between я полюбил этот город and мне понравился этот город?

Both can be translated with “I liked / came to like this city”, but they feel different in Russian:

Я полюбил этот город.
Literally: I came to love this city.
– Stronger, deeper feeling; suggests emotional attachment, almost “fell in love with this city.”
Мне понравился этот город.
Literally: This city pleased me / was to my liking.
– Milder; more like “I liked this city” or “I found this city nice.”

Grammar:

полюбить: takes a direct object in accusative
- я полюбил этот город
понравиться: often used with dative + reflexive
- мне понравился этот город
  (“to me it was pleasing”)

Can I say с течением времени instead of со временем? Is there any difference?

Yes, you can say:

С течением времени я полюбил этот город.

It means practically the same thing: “As time flowed / with the passage of time, I came to love this city.”

Nuance:

со временем – very common, neutral, conversational.
с течением времени – a bit more formal or literary, slightly more poetic.

In everyday speech, со временем is more frequent and feels more natural in this sentence.

Could we drop этот and just say Со временем я полюбил город?

Yes, grammatically it’s fine:

Со временем я полюбил город. – Over time I came to love (the) city.

The difference is about specificity:

этот город – this particular city, the one already known from context.
город – “the city” in a more general sense, or a city that hasn’t been specifically identified yet.

In real conversation, if you’re clearly talking about one known city (e.g., the one you moved to), этот город is more natural.