Word
Между лекциями мы заходим в буфет и берём по чашке чая, но сегодня в буфете не было кефира.
Meaning
Between lectures we stop by the snack bar and get a cup of tea each, but today there was no kefir in the snack bar.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Breakdown of Между лекциями мы заходим в буфет и берём по чашке чая, но сегодня в буфете не было кефира.
в
to
в
in
быть
to be
и
and
Questions & Answers about Между лекциями мы заходим в буфет и берём по чашке чая, но сегодня в буфете не было кефира.
Why is it между лекциями?
Because между normally takes the instrumental case when it means between.
- лекции = lectures
- instrumental plural = лекциями
So между лекциями literally means between lectures. This is a very common time expression in Russian.
Why do we have в буфет first, but later в буфете?
This is the usual Russian contrast between motion toward a place and location in a place:
- в буфет = to the cafeteria/snack bar → movement, so Russian uses the accusative
- в буфете = in the cafeteria/snack bar → location, so Russian uses the prepositional
With masculine inanimate nouns like буфет, the accusative singular looks the same as the nominative, so you see буфет with no ending change.
Why are заходим and берём in the present tense?