Дочка попросила сладкий сироп к блинам вместо мёда.

Both mean daughter, but дочка is a more everyday, affectionate, or colloquial form. Дочь is more neutral and a bit more formal.

So:

• дочка = daughter, little daughter, dear daughter
• дочь = daughter

In normal spoken Russian, дочка is very common.

Попросила is the past tense of попросить, which is a perfective verb. Here it means something like asked for / requested as a single completed action.

The ending -а shows that the subject is:

• feminine
• singular
• in the past tense

Because the subject is дочка (a feminine noun), the verb must be feminine too:

• дочка попросила
• сын попросил
• дети попросили

The perfective verb попросить suggests one completed request. If you used просила instead, that would usually sound more like an ongoing, repeated, or less bounded action.

Russian has no articles, so there is no separate word for the or a/an.

So дочка can mean:

• the daughter
• a daughter
• my daughter / his daughter / her daughter

depending on context.

Also, Russian often leaves out pronouns when they are unnecessary. Since дочка is already the subject, there is no need to add она.

Сладкий сироп is the direct object of the verb попросила, so it is in the accusative case.

However, for masculine inanimate singular nouns, the accusative looks exactly like the nominative:

• nominative: сладкий сироп
• accusative: сладкий сироп

So it is changing in function, but not in visible form.

This is very common in Russian.

Because adjectives must agree with the noun they describe in:

• gender
• number
• case

Here сироп is:

• masculine
• singular
• accusative (but inanimate, so it looks like nominative)

So the adjective also appears as:

• сладкий сироп

If the noun were feminine, plural, or animate, the form would change.

Yes, к often means to/toward and normally takes the dative case.

But in food-related expressions, к + dative can also mean something like:

• for
• with
• to go with

So к блинам means for the pancakes / to go with the pancakes.

This is a very natural Russian pattern, similar to expressions like:

• чай к пирогу = tea to go with the pie
• соус к мясу = sauce for the meat

And because к requires the dative, блины becomes блинам.

Yes, but the nuance changes.

• к блинам = to go with the pancakes; a very natural choice for toppings, sauces, condiments
• с блинами = with the pancakes; more like together with the pancakes
• для блинов = for pancakes; more general, less idiomatic here if someone is asking for a topping at the table

So in this sentence, к блинам is the most natural way to say that the syrup is meant as an accompaniment to the pancakes.

Because вместо requires the genitive case.

So:

• nominative: мёд
• genitive: мёда

That is why the sentence has:

• вместо мёда = instead of honey

This is a fixed grammatical rule: вместо + genitive.

Strictly speaking, ё is the correct letter here:

• мёд
• мёда

In everyday Russian writing, people often replace ё with е, so you may also see:

• мед
• меда

But the pronunciation is still with yo, not plain e.

For learners, it is very helpful to pay attention to ё, because it removes ambiguity and shows the correct pronunciation.

Yes. Russian word order is fairly flexible because case endings show the grammatical roles.

The original order is neutral and natural:

• Дочка попросила сладкий сироп к блинам вместо мёда.

But you could also say:

• Вместо мёда дочка попросила сладкий сироп к блинам.
• Сладкий сироп к блинам дочка попросила вместо мёда.

The core meaning stays the same, but the emphasis shifts.

For example:

• starting with вместо мёда highlights the contrast with honey
• starting with сладкий сироп highlights what she asked for

The main stress pattern is:

До́чка попроси́ла сла́дкий сиро́п к блина́м вме́сто мёда.

A rough pronunciation guide:

DOCH-ka pa-pra-SEE-la SLAT-kee see-ROP k blee-NAM VMES-ta MYO-da

A few useful notes:

• ё is pronounced like yo
• чк in дочка is pronounced as written
• unstressed o is reduced in normal speech, so it does not sound like a strong English o

If you learn the stress correctly early, your Russian will sound much more natural.