Word
После ужина мы открыли один гранат и долго ели его всей семьёй.
Meaning
After dinner, we opened one pomegranate and ate it for a long time with the whole family.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Breakdown of После ужина мы открыли один гранат и долго ели его всей семьёй.
есть
to eat
открыть
to open
и
and
ужин
the dinner
Questions & Answers about После ужина мы открыли один гранат и долго ели его всей семьёй.
Why is it после ужина and not после ужин?
Because после always takes the genitive case.
- ужин = dinner
- после ужина = after dinner
So ужина is the genitive singular form of ужин.
This is a very common pattern:
- после урока = after the lesson
- после работы = after work
- после фильма = after the film
Why is it открыли and not открывали?
Открыли is perfective past tense, so it presents the action as a completed whole: we opened it.
In this sentence, the idea is:
- first, they opened one pomegranate,
- then they spent a long time eating it.
That completed, one-time action is why открыли is natural here.
Compare:
- мы открыли гранат = we opened the pomegranate / we cut it open
- мы открывали гранат = we were opening the pomegranate / used to open pomegranates / opened it repeatedly, depending on context
What does открыли mean here? Can you really open a pomegranate in Russian?