Сонный ребёнок идёт домой.

The sleepy child is walking home.

Breakdown of Сонный ребёнок идёт домой.

• идти: to walk
• домой: home
• ребёнок: the child
• сонный: sleepy

Questions & Answers about Сонный ребёнок идёт домой.

What is the grammatical role of сонный in this sentence?

Сонный is an adjective meaning sleepy.
Grammatically, it is an attributive adjective that describes the noun ребёнок (child).

• It agrees with ребёнок in:
  • Gender: masculine
  • Number: singular
  • Case: nominative
• So it answers the question: какой? (what kind of?) – какой ребёнок? → сонный ребёнок (a sleepy child).

Why is it сонный and not something like спящий or усталый?

All three are possible but have different nuances:

• сонный – sleepy, drowsy, wants to sleep, eyes closing, low energy.
• спящий – sleeping, actually asleep right now.
• усталый – tired, exhausted, but not necessarily wanting to sleep.

So:

• Сонный ребёнок идёт домой. – The child is drowsy/sleepy, but still walking.
• Спящий ребёнок лежит в кровати. – The child is asleep.
• Усталый ребёнок идёт домой. – The child is tired (maybe after playing, walking, etc.).

What gender is ребёнок, and how do I know?

Ребёнок (child) is grammatically masculine in Russian, even though it can refer to either a boy or a girl.

Clues:

• The typical nominative singular ending -ок (как щенок, котёнок) is usually masculine.
• The adjective сонный is in its masculine form (-ый), which confirms the noun is masculine.

So:

• сонный ребёнок (masc.)
• If it were feminine, you would see сонная (e.g. сонная девочка – sleepy girl).

What case are сонный and ребёнок in here?

Both сонный and ребёнок are in the nominative singular:

• The subject of the sentence (the “doer”) is in the nominative: кто? что? – ребёнок.
• The adjective modifying the subject must agree and also be nominative: какой? – сонный.

So the subject phrase is: сонный ребёнок (nominative).

Why is it идёт and not идти, ходит, or something else?

• Идти is the infinitive (to go / to walk). You don’t use the infinitive as the main verb in a normal finite sentence.
• Идёт is 3rd person singular, present tense of идти:
  • он/она/оно идёт – he/she/it is going (on foot).
• Ходить is another verb meaning “to go (on foot)” but:
  • идти – one specific movement in one direction (now or in a concrete situation).
  • ходить – repeated / habitual / multi-directional movement.

So:

• Сонный ребёнок идёт домой. – The sleepy child is (now) going home (in one direction).
• Сонный ребёнок каждый день ходит домой один. – The sleepy child goes home alone every day (habitually).

How is идёт different from едет?

Both mean is going, but they differ in means of transport:

• идёт (from идти) – going on foot, walking.
• едет (from ехать) – going by transport (car, bus, train, etc.).

For example:

• Ребёнок идёт домой. – The child is walking home.
• Ребёнок едет домой. – The child is going home by some vehicle.

Why is it домой and not в дом or к дому or дом?

All are possible but have different meanings:

• домой – “(to) home”, direction towards home in general (not stressing entering a building).
  • идёт домой – is going home.
• в дом – “into the house”, focus on going inside the building.
  • идёт в дом – is going into the house (emphasis on entering).
• к дому – “towards the house”, up to the house, but not necessarily inside.
  • идёт к дому – is walking toward the house (maybe just approaching).
• дом (without ending, in nominative) usually cannot stand alone in this position to mean “home” with motion; you need домой, домой идти.

In this sentence, домой is the natural choice for “(is) going home” in a general sense.

Why does домой have no preposition (like “to home”)?

Russian often uses adverbs of direction without prepositions. Домой is one of them.

Compare:

• дом – house/home (noun, base form)
• дома – at home
• домой – (to) home

So English “to home” is just домой, with no preposition.
Other similar pairs: там (there), туда (to there), здесь (here), сюда (to here).

Can I change the word order, like Ребёнок сонный идёт домой or Домой идёт сонный ребёнок?

Yes, Russian word order is flexible, but the default and most neutral order here is:

• Сонный ребёнок идёт домой.

Other orders:

• Ребёнок сонный идёт домой. – Possible; the adjective after the noun can sound slightly more expressive or stylistic (e.g. in storytelling).
• Домой идёт сонный ребёнок. – Emphasizes домой (home) or sets the scene: “Homeward goes a sleepy child.”

Meaning stays almost the same; what changes is emphasis and style.

Where is the stress in each word, and how are they roughly pronounced?

Stress (marked with ´):

• Со́нный – stress on со́: SOHN-nyy
• ребёнок – ребё́нок → stress on бё: ree-BYOH-nək
• идёт – идё́т → stress on дё: ee-DYOT
• домо́й – stress on мой: da-MOY

Very approximate IPA:

• сонный – [ˈson.nɨj]
• ребёнок – [rʲɪˈbʲɵnək]
• идёт – [ɪˈdʲot]
• домой – [dɐˈmoj]

Why doesn’t Russian show “a/the” like in English “a sleepy child / the sleepy child”?

Russian has no articles (a, an, the). The phrase сонный ребёнок can mean:

• a sleepy child
• the sleepy child

The exact meaning depends on context, not on a separate word:

• In a new, general context: likely “a sleepy child”.
• If both speaker and listener already know which child is being discussed: “the sleepy child”.

So Сонный ребёнок идёт домой. can be translated either way, depending on the situation.