Breakdown of Мой брат хорошо играет в баскетбол.
Questions & Answers about Мой брат хорошо играет в баскетбол.
In Russian, when you play a sport or a game, you normally use the verb играть with the preposition в + the accusative case:
- играть в баскетбол – to play basketball
- играть в футбол – to play football/soccer
- играть в шахматы – to play chess
So в баскетбол is the standard pattern: играть в + [name of game/sport in accusative].
Saying играть баскетбол without в is not correct in standard Russian.
Баскетбол is in the accusative case, because it is the object of the verb играет in the pattern играть в + accusative.
For inanimate masculine nouns like баскетбол, the accusative form is identical to the nominative:
- Nominative: баскетбол
- Accusative: баскетбол
You know it is accusative here not from the ending (which doesn’t change), but from the preposition в and the verb pattern играть в + accusative.
Russian uses different prepositions depending on what you play:
играть в + accusative for games and sports:
- играть в баскетбол
- играть в футбол
- играть в карты
играть на + prepositional for musical instruments:
- играть на гитаре (on the guitar)
- играть на пианино (on the piano)
- играть на скрипке (on the violin)
So в is used with sports/games; на is used with instruments.
Both Мой брат хорошо играет в баскетбол and Мой брат играет хорошо в баскетбол are grammatically possible, but:
- Мой брат хорошо играет в баскетбол is the most natural and neutral word order.
- хорошо before the verb very smoothly expresses “plays well”.
If you move хорошо:
- Мой брат играет в баскетбол хорошо – can sound like you’re emphasizing how he plays (well), not just stating a fact.
- Хорошо играет мой брат в баскетбол – has stronger emphasis on хорошо (“It’s my brother who plays well in basketball”).
So yes, the order is somewhat flexible, but хорошо играет is the default, neutral version.
Russian has aspect: imperfective vs. perfective.
- играет (играть) – imperfective: process, ability, habit, repeated action.
- сыграет (сыграть) – perfective: a completed, one-time action (“will play (once and be done)”).
In Мой брат хорошо играет в баскетбол, you are talking about a general ability / regular habit (“My brother plays well / is good at basketball”), so you must use the imperfective: играет.
Using сыграет here would sound like you mean “My brother will play basketball well (on some occasion / in a particular game)”.
Russian does not have a separate present continuous like English “is playing”.
The same verb form играет is used for both:
- Мой брат хорошо играет в баскетбол. – My brother plays basketball well. / My brother is good at basketball.
- Мой брат сейчас играет в баскетбол. – My brother is playing basketball now.
To show that it is happening right now, you add words like сейчас (now), в данный момент (at the moment), etc. The verb form stays играет.
These two structures have different purposes:
Мой брат хорошо играет в баскетбол.
- Literally: My brother plays basketball well.
- мой брат is the subject: you’re talking about him and describing him.
У меня есть брат.
- Literally: At me there is a brother → “I have a brother.”
- This introduces the existence of a brother, not his qualities.
In your sentence, you already know he exists; you want to say what he is like, so you use Мой брат… as the subject.
In Russian, possessive pronouns agree with the gender and number of the noun they modify.
брат (brother) is masculine singular.
So we use мой (my – masculine singular):- мой брат – my brother
- моя сестра – my sister (feminine)
- моё окно – my window (neuter)
- мои друзья – my friends (plural)
So мой брат is used because брат is masculine singular.
Хорошо is an adverb, хороший is an adjective.
Adverbs (хорошо) describe how an action is done and modify verbs:
- Он хорошо играет. – He plays well.
Adjectives (хороший) describe nouns:
- хороший брат – a good brother
- хороший баскетболист – a good basketball player
In Мой брат хорошо играет в баскетбол, you are describing how he plays (well), so you need the adverb хорошо, not the adjective хороший.
No. Russian does not use a separate verb like “to be” in the present tense in sentences like this.
In English:
- “My brother is good at basketball.” – requires is.
In Russian, in the present tense, the “is” is usually omitted:
- Мой брат хорошо играет в баскетбол. – literally “My brother well plays basketball.”
The verb есть is normally used for “to eat” or in some special structures, not as a general present “is” in simple descriptive sentences.
Yes, grammatically you can say:
- Он хорошо играет в баскетбол. – He plays basketball well.
However, it slightly changes what you are emphasizing:
- Мой брат хорошо играет в баскетбол. – focuses on which person (my brother) and describes him.
- Он хорошо играет в баскетбол. – assumes the person is already clear from context (“he”) and you just say something about him.
Both are fine; which one you use depends on what you want to stress and what is already known in the conversation.
Russian word order is more flexible than English, but Мой брат хорошо играет в баскетбол is the standard, neutral order.
Other orders are possible but carry different emphases:
- Хорошо играет мой брат в баскетбол. – strong emphasis on хорошо (it’s well that he plays).
- Мой брат в баскетбол хорошо играет. – emphasis shifts a bit toward хорошо, sounds less neutral.
- В баскетбол мой брат хорошо играет. – emphasizes баскетбол (it’s basketball, specifically, that he plays well).
For a simple, neutral statement, Мой брат хорошо играет в баскетбол is the best choice.