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Громкий телефон и яркий экран создают сильные отвлечения во время урока.

Громкий телефон и яркий экран создают сильные отвлечения во время урока.
A loud phone and a bright screen create strong distractions during the lesson.

Breakdown of Громкий телефон и яркий экран создают сильные отвлечения во время урока.

телефон
the phone
и
and
яркий
bright
сильный
strong
урок
the lesson
во время
during
экран
the screen
громкий
loud
создавать
to create
отвлечение
the distraction
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Questions & Answers about Громкий телефон и яркий экран создают сильные отвлечения во время урока.

Why is the verb создают plural here?

The subject of the sentence is громкий телефон и яркий экран – two different things joined by и (“and”).

In Russian, when the subject has two or more items connected by и, the verb usually stands in the 3rd person plural:

  • Громкий телефон и яркий экран создают…
  • Учитель и студенты обсуждают тему.

So создают is plural to agree with the compound subject телефон и экран.

Could I say создаёт instead of создают, since экран is singular and is closest to the verb?

No, создаёт would be grammatically wrong in standard Russian here.

Agreement in Russian is with the whole subject, not just with the closest noun. Because we have телефон и экран (two nouns), the verb must be plural:

  • ✅ Громкий телефон и яркий экран создают…
  • ❌ Громкий телефон и яркий экран создаёт…

Singular agreement is only possible when the two nouns are treated as one inseparable concept (which they are not here), and even then, it’s more typical in informal speech or special stylistic contexts.

What case is отвлечения in, and why does it end in -ия?

The noun is отвлечение (a distraction), neuter. Its plural forms are:

  • Nom. pl.: отвлечения
  • Acc. pl.: отвлечения

In the sentence, создают (что?) отвлечения — this is the accusative plural (direct object of создают).

For inanimate neuter nouns, the nominative plural and accusative plural have the same form, so it looks like nominative, but functionally here it is accusative.

Why is it отвлечения (plural) and not отвлечение (singular)?

In English you can say both “a distraction” and “distractions.” Russian works similarly, but in this context the plural is more natural, because we’re talking about multiple distracting effects created by:

  • a loud phone
  • a bright screen

Together they cause many moments / instances of distraction, not one single, isolated distraction. Hence the plural сильные отвлечения.

Is the phrase сильные отвлечения natural Russian, or is there a better way to say this?

Сильные отвлечения is grammatically correct and understandable, but it’s not the most idiomatic everyday phrasing.

More natural options would be, for example:

  • Громкий телефон и яркий экран сильно отвлекают во время урока.
  • …очень отвлекают во время урока.
  • …серьёзно мешают во время урока.
  • …создают сильные помехи во время урока.

Your version is fine for a learning sentence, but in real speech Russians more often use a verb like отвлекают/мешают rather than the noun отвлечения.

What are the forms and genders of телефон, экран, and how do the adjectives agree with them?

  • Телефон – masculine, singular, nominative (он)

    • Adjective: громкий телефон
      • громкий = masc. sg. nom. (-ий ending)

  • Экран – masculine, singular, nominative (он)

    • Adjective: яркий экран
      • яркий = masc. sg. nom. (-ий ending)

The pattern is:
[masc. nom. sg. adjective] + [masc. nom. sg. noun]

So: громкий телефон, яркий экран.
Both adjectives are in the same gender, number, and case as the noun they modify: masculine, singular, nominative.

What about сильные отвлечения – what forms are those?
  • Отвлечения – neuter, plural, accusative (direct object).
  • Сильные – adjective, plural, accusative (and for inanimate, it looks the same as plural nominative).

Agreement:

  • Noun: отвлечения – pl. acc.
  • Adjective: сильные – pl. acc.

So сильные отвлечения is “strong distractions,” with full adjective–noun agreement in number and case (and gender doesn’t matter in plural).

Why is it во время урока, and why урока, not урок?

The key points:

  1. Во время means “during” and always takes the genitive case.
  2. Урок (lesson) in the genitive singular is урока.

So:

  • Preposition: во время
  • Noun in genitive: (чего?) урока

That’s why we say во время урока.
If you said во время урок, it would be a case error.

Why is it во время, not just в время?

В and во are two forms of the same preposition. Во is used mainly:

  1. Before certain consonant clusters to make pronunciation easier.
  2. For euphony in set phrases.

Время starts with the cluster вр, which is awkward after в, so Russian normally uses во:

  • ✅ во время
  • ✅ во Франции (many speakers prefer this)
  • ✅ во дворе

So во время урока is the regular, natural form.

What is the difference between во время урока and на уроке?

Both can be translated as “during the lesson”, but the nuance is different:

  • Во время урока – literally “during the time of the lesson”.

    • Focus on the time period.
    • More neutral/formal.

  • На уроке – literally “at the lesson / in class.”

    • Focus on the situation / place / event.

In your sentence, you could say:

  • Громкий телефон и яркий экран создают сильные отвлечения во время урока.
  • Громкий телефон и яркий экран сильно отвлекают на уроке.

Both are possible. Во время урока sounds slightly more formal and time-oriented.

Can I move во время урока to another position in the sentence?

Yes, Russian word order is fairly flexible. All of these are grammatically correct, with only slight emphasis changes:

  • Громкий телефон и яркий экран создают сильные отвлечения во время урока.
  • Во время урока громкий телефон и яркий экран создают сильные отвлечения.
  • Громкий телефон и яркий экран во время урока создают сильные отвлечения.

Placing во время урока at the beginning often emphasizes the time frame:

  • Во время урока (именно тогда) громкий телефон и яркий экран создают сильные отвлечения.
Why is the verb создавать (imperfective) used and not создать (perfective)?

Создают is from the imperfective verb создавать. It is used because the sentence describes a general, repeated, or typical situation:

  • Loud phones and bright screens (generally) create strong distractions in class.

Imperfective in the present tense expresses:

  • general truths,
  • habits,
  • ongoing situations.

The perfective form would be создадут (“will create”), and it would be used for a one-time, completed future event:

  • Громкий телефон и яркий экран создадут сильные отвлечения на завтрашнем уроке.
    “A loud phone and a bright screen will create strong distractions in tomorrow’s lesson.”

Here, we are not talking about one specific future event, so the imperfective создают is correct.

What exactly is the nuance of громкий телефон and яркий экран? Are there more natural synonyms?

  • Громкий телефон – a phone that is loud (ringtone, notifications, speaker).

    • Nearby synonym: шумный телефон (noisy phone), but громкий is more standard for volume level.
    • Related phrases: громкий звонок телефона (loud ring), громкий сигнал.

  • Яркий экран – a bright screen, as in strong light / high brightness.

    • Яркий is the normal word for visually bright or vivid.
    • Another adjective, светлый, is more like “light” (not dark), not used for screen brightness in the same way.

Collocations like яркий экран телефона, яркий экран ноутбука are very natural in modern Russian.