Во время пожара паника мешает людям действовать спокойно.

the person

Breakdown of Во время пожара паника мешает людям действовать спокойно.

• спокойно: calmly
• во время: during
• мешать: to prevent

Questions & Answers about Во время пожара паника мешает людям действовать спокойно.

Why is it во время пожара and not just во время пожар?

Because во время is a fixed expression meaning during, and the noun after it takes the genitive case.

So:

• пожар = fire
• пожара = of a fire / during a fire

This is why you get:

• во время урока = during the lesson
• во время войны = during the war
• во время пожара = during the fire

Also, во is used instead of в here for pronunciation reasons. Russian often uses во before certain consonant combinations to make the phrase easier to say.

What case is пожара, and why?

Пожара is in the genitive singular.

The base form is:

• пожар = fire

After во время, Russian uses the genitive:

• во время пожара = during the fire

This is very common. If you learn во время + genitive, you can use it with many nouns.

Why is паника the subject of the sentence?