Breakdown of Мы договорились встретиться в кафе у метро и обсудить план на завтра.
Questions & Answers about Мы договорились встретиться в кафе у метро и обсудить план на завтра.
Russian often uses a past-tense verb to describe a completed agreement made earlier: Мы договорились... = We (already) agreed.... The future action is then expressed by the infinitives (встретиться, обсудить), not by changing договорились to future.
Договориться = to come to an agreement / to arrange (together), usually implying a mutual decision after discussion.
Согласиться = to agree (to something), often implying one person accepts someone else’s proposal.
So Мы договорились встретиться... feels like We arranged to meet... (both sides participated).
A very common pattern is: договориться + infinitive = to agree/arrange to do something.
Example: Мы договорились позвонить вечером. (We agreed to call in the evening.)
You can also express it with a noun: Мы договорились о встрече. (We agreed about the meeting.)
встретиться (perfective) usually means one specific meeting (a single event): to meet up (once).
встречаться (imperfective) often means meeting regularly/over time or focusing on the process: to meet (repeatedly), to date, etc.
Here it’s a one-time planned meeting, so встретиться is natural.
The -ся ending often marks a reflexive/reciprocal idea. With встретиться, it expresses meeting each other (a mutual action).
Without -ся, встретить means to meet someone / to encounter someone (more like “to meet” them as an object):
- Я встретил друга. (I met/ran into a friend.)
- Мы встретились. (We met (each other).)
Both infinitives depend on договорились:
- договорились (что сделать?) встретиться ... и обсудить ...
So it’s like: We agreed to (1) meet ... and (2) discuss ...
Russian often uses a single “agree” verb with multiple infinitives joined by и.
With в meaning “in/into,” Russian normally uses:
- в + prepositional for location (in): в доме, в городе
- в + accusative for motion (into): в дом, в город
кафе is indeclinable (it looks the same in different cases), so в кафе can mean either “in the café” or “into the café” depending on context. Here it’s “meet at/in a café.”
у + genitive commonly means near / by / next to.
So в кафе у метро = in a café near the метро (metro station).
Even though метро doesn’t change (it’s indeclinable), it’s still grammatically genitive after у.
план на завтра literally means a plan for tomorrow (plan for the time period).
The preposition на is very common with time targets like this:
- встреча на завтра (a meeting for tomorrow)
- задачи на неделю (tasks for the week)
план завтра is generally not the normal way to say “plan for tomorrow.”
обсудить (“to discuss”) takes a direct object in the accusative.
For masculine inanimate nouns like план, accusative = nominative in form, so it stays план:
- обсудить (что?) план
If it were animate, you’d see a different form (e.g., увидеть брата).
Yes, Russian word order is flexible. The core meaning stays, but emphasis can shift. For example:
- Мы договорились встретиться у метро в кафе и обсудить план на завтра. (more focus on “near the metro”)
- Мы договорились обсудить план на завтра и встретиться в кафе у метро. (puts “discuss the plan” first)
The original order is neutral and natural: first the meeting arrangement, then what you’ll do there.