Breakdown of Мой брат собирается жениться, но пока он с невестой то ссорится, то мирится.
Questions & Answers about Мой брат собирается жениться, но пока он с невестой то ссорится, то мирится.
Собираться + infinitive is a very common way to say “to be going to / to be planning to (do something)”.
- собираться by itself = to get ready, to gather, to plan
- жениться = to get married (for a man)
So Мой брат собирается жениться means:
- “My brother is going to get married”
or - “My brother is planning to get married.”
It suggests an intention or plan, not just a distant idea, but without guaranteeing that it will definitely happen.
These three verbs are similar in meaning, but they differ in who is the subject and how they are used:
жениться (на ком?)
- Used when the subject is a man.
- Means “to marry (a woman)” / “to get married” (from the man’s perspective).
- Example:
- Он хочет жениться на Оле. – He wants to marry Olga.
выходить замуж (за кого?)
- Used when the subject is a woman.
- Means “to marry (a man)” / “to get married” (from the woman’s perspective).
- Example:
- Она выходит замуж за Ивана. – She is marrying Ivan.
пожениться
- Used when the subject is a couple or a group (plural).
- Means “to get married (to each other)”.
- Example:
- Они скоро поженятся. – They will get married soon.
In the sentence:
Мой брат собирается жениться…
the subject is мой брат (a man), so we must use жениться, not выходить замуж.
We also don’t use пожениться, because that’s for “they (both) get married”, not for “he” alone.
You can say both, but the nuance is a bit different:
Мой брат женится.
→ “My brother is getting married.”
This usually implies that the event is already scheduled / decided (date fixed, preparations underway). It’s more like stating a fact.Мой брат собирается жениться.
→ “My brother is going to get married / is planning to get married.”
This focuses more on his intention or plan. It can still sound a bit less final: maybe it’s decided, maybe it’s still at the planning stage.
In the full sentence, the contrast with но пока… (“but for now…”) fits especially well with the idea of plans vs current reality, so собирается жениться is very natural here.
Пока can have two main meanings:
“while / as long as” (temporal “while”):
- Пока я готовлю, посмотри фильм. – While I’m cooking, watch a movie.
“for now / for the time being / so far / yet”:
- Я пока дома. – I’m at home for now.
- Пока всё хорошо. – So far, everything is good.
In your sentence:
…но пока он с невестой то ссорится, то мирится.
пока means “for now / at the moment”, so the whole contrast is:
- He is going to get married,
but for now he keeps quarreling and making up with his fiancée.
You could think of но пока here as “but for the time being”.
The correlative construction то …, то … expresses alternation: something happens now one way, now another way; sometimes this, sometimes that.
So то ссорится, то мирится means:
- “they quarrel, then make up, then quarrel again,”
- or more smoothly in English: “keeps quarrelling and making up”,
- “sometimes they fight, sometimes they make peace.”
Key points:
- Each то comes directly before the part it emphasizes:
- то ссорится, то мирится
- It’s stylistically vivid, similar to “now … now …” in English:
- То дождь пойдёт, то снег. – Now it starts raining, now it snows.
- Ребёнок то смеётся, то плачет. – The child now laughs, now cries.
In this sentence, it suggests that this quarrel–reconciliation cycle is repeated and changeable.
The ending -ся (or -сь after a vowel) marks a reflexive verb in Russian. Reflexive verbs can indicate:
- actions done to oneself,
- reciprocal actions (to each other),
- passive-like meanings,
- or some other special meanings.
Here:
- ссориться – to quarrel (with each other)
- мириться – to make up / to reconcile (with each other)
Both are reciprocal: two people are involved in the action towards each other.
Without -ся you’d get different verbs:
- ссорить кого – to make someone quarrel
- мирить кого – to reconcile people (to make them make peace)
So:
- он ссорится с невестой – he quarrels with his fiancée
- он мирится с невестой – he makes peace with his fiancée
The -ся tells you that the action is not just directed outward, but is mutual or internal in some way.
These pairs differ by aspect:
- ссориться – imperfective
- поссориться – perfective
- мириться – imperfective
- помириться – perfective
Imperfective (ссориться, мириться):
- ongoing, repeated, habitual or process-like actions
- used in the Present tense for repeated or general actions
Perfective (поссориться, помириться):
- a single, completed action or result
- in the past: “they quarrelled (once and it’s over) / they made up”
- in the future: “they will quarrel (once) / they will make up”
Compare:
Они часто ссорятся и мирятся.
– They often quarrel and make up. (repeated behaviour)Они поссорились вчера, но уже помирились.
– They quarrelled yesterday, but already made up. (one-time events with results)
In your sentence:
…он с невестой то ссорится, то мирится.
we’re talking about repeated, on-and-off behaviour, so the imperfective forms ссорится / мирится are appropriate.
Невестой is in the instrumental case (singular).
The preposition с has several meanings and can take different cases, but when it means “with (someone)” in company or opposition, it uses the instrumental:
- с кем? с чем? – with whom? with what?
Examples:
- Я гуляю с другом. – I’m walking with my friend.
- Он спорит с учителем. – He argues with the teacher.
- Она живёт с родителями. – She lives with her parents.
So:
он с невестой то ссорится, то мирится
literally: “he with (his) fiancée now quarrels, now makes peace.”
The с + instrumental shows that she is his partner in the action (they do this together / to each other).
Russian невеста covers both English concepts:
- fiancée – a woman who is engaged to be married
- bride – a woman on or around her wedding day
So:
- Before the wedding: его невеста – his fiancée
- On the wedding day: невеста и жених – the bride and groom
In your sentence the brother hasn’t married yet, so невеста is best translated as “fiancée”.
Russian doesn’t normally distinguish “fiancée” and “bride” with two different everyday words; невеста is used for both situations until she becomes жена (wife).
Yes, Russian word order is fairly flexible, and several variants are possible and natural. For example:
- Original:
- …но пока он с невестой то ссорится, то мирится.
- Alternative:
- …но он пока с невестой то ссорится, то мирится.
- Another option:
- …но он с невестой пока то ссорится, то мирится.
All three are grammatical and sound natural. The differences are mostly in rhythm and emphasis, not in basic meaning:
- Placing пока right after но or after он both work and keep the “for now” meaning.
- You should not break the units то ссорится and то мирится by inserting other words between то and the verb.
Your version:
…но он пока то ссорится с невестой, то мирится
also sounds fine; it slightly highlights the changing states (то ссорится, то мирится) more than the partner (с невестой), but it’s perfectly acceptable.
There are two separate punctuation rules here:
Comma before “но”
Russian uses a comma before но when it joins two independent clauses (like two sentences joined by “but” in English):
- Мой брат собирается жениться, – complete clause.
- (но) пока он с невестой то ссорится, то мирится. – another clause.
So the comma before но is obligatory.
Comma in the “то …, то …” construction
In то …, то …, you usually separate the two parts with a comma, because they are two homogeneous predicates (two verbs relating to the same subject):
- то ссорится, то мирится
Similar examples:
- То смеётся, то плачет.
- То идёт дождь, то светит солнце.
So the commas are there because:
- before “но” – standard rule for contrasting clauses;
- between “то ссорится” and “то мирится” – standard rule for the то …, то … pattern.
Yes, that’s natural, and many speakers would actually phrase it that way:
Мой брат собирается жениться, но пока они с невестой то ссорятся, то мирятся.
Changes:
- Subject changes from он (he) to они (they).
- Verbs must agree in number:
- они ссорятся, мирятся (plural) instead of он ссорится, мирится (singular).
Nuance:
- он с невестой puts a bit more focus on him (“he, with his fiancée, keeps…”).
- они с невестой or simply они emphasizes them as a couple acting together: “but for now they keep quarrelling and making up.”
Both versions are correct; it’s mainly a matter of stylistic choice and emphasis.