Breakdown of Пожалуйста, возьмите ножницы и вырежьте этот абзац из старого журнала.
Questions & Answers about Пожалуйста, возьмите ножницы и вырежьте этот абзац из старого журнала.
Both возьмите and вырежьте are imperative forms, so they mean take and cut out as commands or instructions.
The ending -те can mean either:
- you are speaking to more than one person, or
- you are speaking to one person politely using вы
So возьмите = take / please take
and вырежьте = cut out / please cut out
Without -те, you would get the informal singular:
- возьми
- вырежи
Those are used with ты.
Yes, here пожалуйста means please and makes the instruction more polite.
In commands, Russian often uses the imperative, and пожалуйста softens it:
- Возьмите ножницы. = Take the scissors.
- Пожалуйста, возьмите ножницы. = Please take the scissors.
It can appear in different positions, but at the beginning is very common:
- Пожалуйста, возьмите ножницы...
- Возьмите, пожалуйста, ножницы...
Both are natural.
Yes, very much so. Ножницы is a plural-only noun in normal usage, just like English scissors.
So Russian says:
- эти ножницы = these scissors
- ножницы лежат на столе = the scissors are lying on the table
There is no normal everyday singular meaning one scissor for the tool. Because the noun is plural, it behaves grammatically as plural.
In this sentence, возьмите ножницы means take the scissors.
It is in the accusative, but for inanimate plural nouns, the accusative often looks exactly like the nominative.
So:
- nominative: ножницы
- accusative: ножницы
Since ножницы is inanimate and plural, the form stays the same.
This is similar to many other inanimate plural nouns in Russian.
Because абзац is the direct object of вырежьте, so it goes into the accusative case.
But абзац is:
- masculine
- singular
- inanimate
For masculine inanimate nouns, the accusative singular is the same as the nominative singular.
So:
- nominative: этот абзац
- accusative: этот абзац
If it were animate, you would often see a different form. For example:
- этот студент (nominative)
- этого студента (accusative)
But абзац is inanimate, so the form stays этот абзац.
Because the preposition из means from/out of and it requires the genitive case.
So:
- журнал = magazine (dictionary form)
- after из → из журнала = from the magazine
And the adjective must match the noun:
- старый журнал = an old magazine
- из старого журнала = from an old magazine
So both words change because из governs the genitive.
This is about verb aspect, which is very important in Russian.
In this sentence:
- возьмите is perfective
- вырежьте is perfective
Perfective imperatives usually focus on a completed action or one concrete result:
- возьмите ножницы = take the scissors
- вырежьте этот абзац = cut out this paragraph
If you used imperfective forms like берите or вырезайте, the meaning would shift. Imperfective imperatives can sound more like:
- a repeated instruction
- a process
- a general direction
- sometimes a softer ongoing instruction, depending on context
For a single practical instruction with a clear result, perfective is the normal choice here.
Not quite. Вырежьте specifically means cut out.
The verb is related to резать = to cut, and the prefix вы- often adds the idea of out or out from something.
So:
- резать = to cut
- вырезать = to cut out
That matches the phrase из старого журнала very well, because you are cutting the paragraph out of the old magazine.
Yes. И simply means and and connects the two imperative actions:
- возьмите ножницы
- вырежьте этот абзац из старого журнала
So the sentence gives a sequence of instructions:
- take the scissors
- cut out the paragraph
This is very normal Russian.
Yes, Russian word order is fairly flexible, although some orders sound more neutral than others.
The given sentence is natural and straightforward:
- Пожалуйста, возьмите ножницы и вырежьте этот абзац из старого журнала.
You could also hear:
- Возьмите, пожалуйста, ножницы и вырежьте этот абзац из старого журнала.
That is also natural.
However, not every rearrangement sounds equally neutral. The original version is a good standard pattern for a polite instruction.
It sounds like a polite instruction.
That politeness comes from two things:
- пожалуйста
- the вы-form imperative (возьмите, вырежьте)
So it could be said by:
- a teacher to a student
- a coworker
- someone giving formal instructions
- someone speaking politely to one person or to a group
Without пожалуйста, it would sound more direct. Without -те, it would sound informal and singular.
In most learning contexts, yes, абзац means paragraph.
In this sentence, it clearly means a block of text in a magazine. So:
- этот абзац = this paragraph
Russian also uses абзац in some informal slang expressions, but that is unrelated here. In this sentence, it is simply the ordinary word for paragraph.
A learner may want to notice these common stresses:
- пожа́луйста
- возьми́те
- но́жницы
- выре́жьте
- э́тот
- абза́ц
- из
- ста́рого
- журна́ла
Stress is important in Russian because it is not always predictable. If you learn the words with the stress from the beginning, pronunciation becomes much easier.