Ребёнок жуёт хлеб.

A good approximate pronunciation is:

rye-BYOH-nak zhoo-YOT khlyep

A few key points:

• ё is pronounced yo and is always stressed.
• ж sounds like the s in measure.
• х is a throaty sound, like the ch in German Bach or Scottish loch.
• е in хлеб is pronounced more like ye after a soft consonant.

So the stress is:

• ребёнок
• жуёт
• хлеб

In Russian, ё is a separate letter, not just a variant of е.

So:

• ребёнок = child
• жуёт = chews / is chewing

However, in many books, websites, and newspapers, Russians often write е instead of ё. That means you may see:

• ребенок
• жует

but they are still pronounced as ребёнок and жуёт.

For learners, this can be confusing, so it is helpful to pay special attention to words that normally contain ё.

Жуёт is the 3rd person singular present tense form of the verb жевать.

That means it matches a subject like:

• он = he
• она = she
• ребёнок = the child

So:

• я жую = I chew / am chewing
• ты жуёшь = you chew / are chewing
• он / она жуёт = he / she chews / is chewing

In this sentence, ребёнок is singular, so жуёт is singular too.

It can mean either one.

Russian present tense, especially with an imperfective verb like жевать, can express:

• a general action: The child chews bread
• an action happening right now: The child is chewing bread

Usually the context tells you which meaning is intended.

Because ребёнок is the subject of the sentence, it is in the nominative case.

In Ребёнок жуёт хлеб:

• ребёнок = the one doing the action
• жуёт = the action
• хлеб = the thing being chewed

So ребёнок stays in its basic dictionary form here.

Yes, хлеб is in the accusative case here.

But for inanimate masculine singular nouns, the accusative form is often the same as the nominative form.

So:

• nominative: хлеб
• accusative: хлеб

That is why the object looks unchanged.

Compare that with an animate masculine noun, where accusative often looks like the genitive instead.

Russian does not have articles like English a, an, or the.

So Ребёнок жуёт хлеб could mean:

• A child is chewing bread
• The child is chewing bread

The exact meaning depends on context.

Russian usually shows definiteness through context, word order, or emphasis instead of articles.

It can mean either.

Ребёнок means child, regardless of sex. It can refer to:

• a boy
• a girl

However, grammatically, ребёнок is treated as a masculine noun in the singular. So adjectives and past-tense verbs normally agree with it as masculine.

For example:

• маленький ребёнок
• ребёнок устал

even if you are talking about a girl.

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

The neutral, most straightforward order is:

• Ребёнок жуёт хлеб.

But other orders are possible, for example:

• Хлеб жуёт ребёнок.
• Жуёт ребёнок хлеб.

These alternatives usually add emphasis or sound more marked. For a beginner, the original subject + verb + object order is the safest and most neutral choice.

Sometimes, yes.

Because жуёт already shows 3rd person singular, Russian can omit the subject if it is clear from context:

• Жуёт хлеб. = He/She/The child is chewing bread.

But if you want to say exactly who is doing the action, you include the noun:

• Ребёнок жуёт хлеб.

Russian often drops pronouns more easily than English, but nouns are still used when needed for clarity.

Жевать is an imperfective verb.

That matters because imperfective verbs are used for:

• ongoing actions
• repeated actions
• general processes

So Ребёнок жуёт хлеб presents the action as a process: the child is in the middle of chewing, or the sentence describes what the child does.

A perfective verb would usually focus on completing the action, but with chew, the exact perfective partner depends on the intended meaning, so жевать / жуёт is the natural form here.

It can be either, depending on context.

Just like English bread, Russian хлеб can be used as a mass noun. In this sentence, it usually means something like:

• bread
• some bread
• a piece of bread

If you wanted to be more specific, Russian could add another word, for example:

• кусок хлеба = a piece of bread
• этот хлеб = this bread

But хлеб by itself is completely natural here.