Борщ со сметаной вкуснее, чем борщ без сметаны.

Borscht with sour cream is tastier than borscht without sour cream.

Breakdown of Борщ со сметаной вкуснее, чем борщ без сметаны.

• с: with
• чем: than
• сметана: the sour cream
• борщ: the borscht

Questions & Answers about Борщ со сметаной вкуснее, чем борщ без сметаны.

Why is it со сметаной and not с сметаной?

Со is a pronunciation-friendly variant of с.

Russian often uses со instead of с before awkward consonant combinations. Since сметаной begins with см-, со сметаной sounds smoother than с сметаной.

The meaning is the same: with sour cream.

Why does сметана change to сметаной in one place and сметаны in the other?

Because the prepositions require different cases.

• с / со meaning with takes the instrumental case
  
  • сметана → сметаной
• без meaning without takes the genitive case
  
  • сметана → сметаны

So:

• со сметаной = with sour cream
• без сметаны = without sour cream

What case is сметаной?