Дети любят раскрашивать картинки дома.

Children love to color pictures at home.

Breakdown of Дети любят раскрашивать картинки дома.

• любить: to love
• дома: at home
• ребёнок: the child
• картинка: the picture
• раскрашивать: to color

Questions & Answers about Дети любят раскрашивать картинки дома.

Why is дети used here, and what case is it in?

Дети means children and it is the nominative plural form, because it is the subject of the sentence.

A useful thing to know is that this noun is irregular:

• singular: ребёнок = child
• plural: дети = children

So Russian does not form this plural in a predictable way from ребёнок.

Why is the verb любят and not любит?

Because the subject дети is plural.

Любят is the 3rd person plural form of любить = to love / to like.

Compare:

• я люблю = I like
• ты любишь = you like
• он / она любит = he / she likes
• они любят = they like

Since дети = they in terms of grammar, Russian uses любят.

Why is раскрашивать in the infinitive?

After любить, Russian normally uses an infinitive when you want to say that someone likes doing something.

So:

• любят раскрашивать = like to color

This works much like English like to do or like doing.

Also, Russian infinitives do not need a separate word like English to. The infinitive form itself already carries that meaning.

Why is it раскрашивать and not раскрасить?

This is a question of aspect, which is very important in Russian.

• раскрашивать = imperfective
• раскрасить = perfective

Here, раскрашивать is natural because the sentence talks about a general activity that children enjoy, not one completed result.

So the idea is:

• Дети любят раскрашивать картинки = Children like coloring pictures / like to color pictures.

If you used раскрасить, it would sound more like liking to finish coloring a picture, focusing on completion. After любить, the imperfective is usually the normal choice for habits and general preferences.

What is the difference between раскрашивать, рисовать, and красить?

These verbs are related, but they are not the same.

• раскрашивать = to color in, to fill with colors
• рисовать = to draw
• красить = to paint / dye / color something more generally

So раскрашивать картинки usually means something like coloring pictures in a coloring book or adding colors to an existing image.

It does not usually mean drawing the pictures from scratch. For that, Russian would normally use рисовать.

Why is картинки in that form?

Here картинки is the direct object of раскрашивать, so it is in the accusative plural.

The important point is that for inanimate plural nouns, the accusative form is usually the same as the nominative form.

So:

• nominative plural: картинки
• accusative plural: картинки

That is why the form does not change here.

For comparison, in the singular you would see a clearer difference:

• картинка = picture
• раскрашивать картинку = to color a picture

What does дома mean here?

Here дома means at home.

It is being used as an adverb, not as a noun.

So the sentence means that the children like coloring pictures at home.

A very useful contrast:

• дома = at home
• домой = to home, homeward
• в доме = in the house / in the building

So:

• Дети любят раскрашивать картинки дома = The children like coloring pictures at home.
• Дети идут домой = The children are going home.

Could дома mean houses here?

Not in this sentence.

Russian дома can sometimes be a noun form related to house / houses, but here the sentence is naturally understood as:

• дома = at home

That is because it fits the verb phrase любят раскрашивать very well: the children like doing this where? At home.

If you wanted to say pictures of houses, Russian would normally use a different structure, such as:

• картинки домов = pictures of houses
• картинки с домами = pictures with houses

So in this sentence, дома is not part of картинки. It tells you the location of the activity.

Is the word order fixed? Could I move дома?

Russian word order is much more flexible than English word order.

The sentence Дети любят раскрашивать картинки дома is natural and clear, but other orders are also possible, for example:

• Дети любят дома раскрашивать картинки
• Дома дети любят раскрашивать картинки

These versions are still grammatical, but the emphasis changes slightly.

In the original sentence, дома comes at the end and sounds like a neutral added detail: they like coloring pictures, and they do it at home.

Why are there no words for the or a?

Russian has no articles.

So Russian does not have direct equivalents of English a, an, and the.

Because of that, Дети любят раскрашивать картинки дома could be translated in different ways depending on context, such as:

• Children like coloring pictures at home.
• The children like coloring pictures at home.

Russian leaves that distinction to context rather than marking it with articles.

Where is the stress in this sentence?

The usual stress pattern is:

• де́ти
• лю́бят
• раскра́шивать
• карти́нки
• дома́

So the sentence is pronounced roughly like:

ДЕ-ти ЛЮ-бят рас-КРА-ши-вать кар-ТИН-ки до-МА

Stress matters in Russian, so it is worth learning words together with their stress whenever possible.