Когда идёт дождь, моя дочка любит лепить фигурки из пластилина.

Russian often expresses weather this way: идёт дождь literally means rain is going / coming.

A few common weather expressions work like this:

• идёт дождь — it is raining
• идёт снег — it is snowing

So English uses a special weather verb, but Russian commonly uses идти in these expressions.

Grammatically:

• идёт = is going / goes (3rd person singular of идти)
• дождь = rain

Even though the literal meaning sounds unusual in English, the natural translation is simply it’s raining or when it rains.

Because the sentence describes a general repeated situation:

Когда идёт дождь, моя дочка любит лепить фигурки из пластилина.

This does not mean only one specific moment right now. It means something like:

• When it rains...
• Whenever it’s raining...

Russian often uses the present tense for general truths, habits, and repeated situations, just like English can say:

• When it rains, she likes...

So идёт is present tense because the sentence describes a habitual pattern.

Here когда can be understood as when or whenever, depending on how naturally you would say it in English.

In this sentence, the meaning is habitual:

• When it rains, my daughter likes...
• Whenever it rains, my daughter likes...

Both are good translations.

So:

• когда = when
• but in repeated situations it often has the sense of whenever

Because Когда идёт дождь is a subordinate clause.

Russian normally separates subordinate clauses from the main clause with a comma:

• Когда идёт дождь, моя дочка любит лепить фигурки из пластилина.

This is like English:

• When it rains, my daughter likes...

Russian punctuation is stricter here than English learners sometimes expect: if you have a clause introduced by когда, a comma is usually required.

Both mean my daughter, but they differ in tone.

• дочь = neutral, standard word
• дочка = affectionate, warm, everyday form

So моя дочка sounds more personal and loving, like my little daughter / my dear daughter, though in many contexts it is just a very normal way to say my daughter.

This is a common feature of Russian: diminutive forms are used much more often than in English.

Because любить is followed by an infinitive when you say someone likes doing something.

Structure:

• любить + infinitive

So:

• любит = likes / loves
• лепить = to sculpt / to mold / to make by shaping

Together:

• любит лепить = likes sculpting / likes making

This is similar to English:

• likes reading
• likes to read

Russian usually uses the infinitive after любить in this type of sentence.

Лепить means to shape, mold, or sculpt something by hand, usually from a soft material.

Typical things you can лепить:

• figures from clay
• shapes from modeling clay
• snowmen from snow
• dumplings in some contexts

In this sentence, since the material is пластилин (modeling clay), лепить is a very natural verb.

Possible English translations here:

• to make little figures
• to mold little figures
• to sculpt little figures

Because the sentence describes a habitual activity, not one completed result.

Russian aspects:

• imperfective = process, repetition, habit, ongoing action
• perfective = completed result, one whole action

Here the daughter likes the activity in general:

• любит лепить = likes making / likes sculpting

If you used a perfective verb such as слепить, it would sound more like to make/finish one figure successfully, which does not fit as well with likes doing this as an activity.

So the imperfective is the natural choice.

Фигурки is the plural form of фигурка, which means little figure / small figurine.

Here it is in the accusative plural, because it is the direct object of лепить:

• лепить что? — фигурки

But for inanimate nouns, the accusative plural is usually the same as the nominative plural. So:

• nominative plural: фигурки
• accusative plural: фигурки

That is why the form does not change.

Also, фигурка itself is a diminutive-type word, so фигурки sounds natural for small shaped objects made from modeling clay.

Because фигурки sounds more natural for small crafted objects.

Compare:

• фигура = figure, shape, form; sometimes a larger or more abstract figure
• фигурка = little figure, figurine, small shaped object

When talking about things a child makes from modeling clay, фигурки is exactly the kind of word Russian would normally use.

So this is not only grammar, but also natural vocabulary choice.

Because the preposition из usually requires the genitive case.

So:

• пластилин = nominative
• из пластилина = out of modeling clay / from modeling clay

This phrase tells you the material something is made from.

A useful pattern:

• из дерева — made of wood
• из бумаги — made of paper
• из пластилина — made of modeling clay

So пластилина is genitive singular after из.

Yes. Russian word order is flexible, though the original sentence is very natural:

Когда идёт дождь, моя дочка любит лепить фигурки из пластилина.

You could also say:

• Моя дочка любит лепить фигурки из пластилина, когда идёт дождь.

Both are grammatical.

The difference is mostly in emphasis:

• starting with Когда идёт дождь highlights the condition or situation first
• starting with Моя дочка highlights the daughter first

Russian uses word order partly for information structure, not only for grammar.

In this kind of sentence, любить often means to like in a strong but normal sense, not necessarily the very intense English to love.

So:

• моя дочка любит лепить is most naturally my daughter likes making/sculpting...
• depending on tone, it could also be loves making...

English usually prefers likes here unless you want extra emphasis.

A fairly literal breakdown would be:

• Когда — when
• идёт дождь — rain is falling / it is raining
• моя дочка — my daughter
• любит — likes
• лепить — to mold / sculpt / shape
• фигурки — little figures
• из пластилина — out of modeling clay

So a near-literal version would be:

When rain is falling, my daughter likes to mold little figures out of modeling clay.

That is not the most natural English translation, but it helps show how the Russian sentence is built.