На полке стоит банка варенья, а рядом лежит пакетик чёрного чая.

Because this sentence describes location, not motion.

• на полке = on the shelf → Prepositional case
• на полку = onto the shelf → Accusative case

Compare:

• На полке стоит банка. = The jar is standing on the shelf.
• Я ставлю банку на полку. = I am putting the jar onto the shelf.

So here, since nothing is moving, Russian uses на + Prepositional.

Russian very often uses position verbs where English simply uses is.

In this sentence:

• стоит = is standing
• лежит = is lying

Russian likes to show how an object is positioned:

• стоять for something upright or conventionally “standing”
• лежать for something lying flat / horizontal
• висеть for something hanging

So:

• банка стоит because a jar normally stands upright
• пакетик лежит because a small packet is thought of as lying there

English usually ignores this detail, but Russian often includes it.

No. It is used for people and objects.

For objects, стоять means that the thing is in an upright position, or is conventionally treated as upright.

Examples:

• На столе стоит бутылка. = There is a bottle standing on the table.
• У окна стоит стул. = A chair is standing by the window.

So банка стоит is completely natural in Russian.

Because Russian often uses the pattern:

container/item + Genitive
to show what is inside it or what it contains.

So:

• банка варенья = a jar of jam/preserves
• стакан воды = a glass of water
• чашка чая = a cup of tea

Here:

• банка is nominative singular
• варенья is genitive singular of варенье

That genitive form answers the idea “a jar of what?”

Варенье is a traditional Russian fruit preserve, often translated as jam or preserves.

But it is not always exactly the same as English jam. It often has:

• visible fruit pieces or whole berries
• a syrupy texture

So банка варенья is often best understood as a jar of jam/preserves, even if the exact food may not match every English-speaking culture’s idea of jam.

For the same reason as банка варенья: Russian uses Genitive after a container or quantity word.

• пакетик = a small packet / little bag
• чая = of tea (genitive of чай)

And the adjective must match чая, so:

• чёрного чая = of black tea

So the structure is:

пакетик + чёрного чая
= a little packet of black tea

Because it agrees with чая, which is in the genitive singular.

Base forms:

• чёрный чай = black tea
• чай → чая in the genitive
• чёрный → чёрного to match it

So:

• пакетик чёрного чая = a packet of black tea

This is normal adjective-noun agreement: the adjective changes case, number, and gender along with the noun it describes.

It is a diminutive suffix. It often makes a word sound:

• smaller
• more specific
• sometimes more natural or everyday

So:

• пакет = packet, bag
• пакетик = little packet, small packet

In this sentence, пакетик suggests a small packet/sachet. Depending on context, it could mean something like a small tea packet.

Diminutives are very common in Russian and do not always sound especially emotional; sometimes they just sound like the most natural everyday word.

Not necessarily exactly, though it may be understood that way in some contexts.

• чайный пакетик more clearly means tea bag
• пакетик чёрного чая literally means a small packet of black tea

So this phrase could suggest:

• a tea bag
• a small packet/sachet of black tea

The exact image depends on context. A learner should mainly notice the grammar pattern: small packet of X.

Here а is close to and, but with a slight sense of contrast or meanwhile / while / whereas.

The sentence gives two parts of the scene:

• on the shelf, there is one thing
• next to it, there is another thing

So а connects them while also separating them a little.

Compare roughly:

• и = and
• а = and / while / whereas / and as for the other thing

In this sentence, а is very natural because it sets one item beside another in the description.

Рядом means nearby / next to it / beside it.

Here it is used as an adverb, so it can stand on its own:

• а рядом лежит пакетик... = and nearby there is a packet...

If you want to say next to something specific, you usually use:

• рядом с + instrumental

For example:

• рядом с банкой = next to the jar
• рядом с полкой = next to the shelf

But in your sentence, the noun is understood from context, so simple рядом is enough.

Both are possible, but the word order changes the focus slightly.

Russian word order is flexible. In descriptions, it is very common to put:

place + verb + thing

So:

• На полке стоит банка варенья.

This sounds natural when introducing what is present in a location:
On the shelf there is a jar of jam.

If you say:

• На полке банка варенья стоит.

it sounds more marked or contrastive.

If you say:

• Банка варенья стоит на полке.

that is also correct, but it focuses a bit more on the jar itself.

So the original word order is a typical “scene description” pattern.

Yes, the verbs are in the present tense:

• стоит
• лежит

But they do not describe an action in progress in the English sense. They describe a state or position.

So:

• банка стоит = the jar is standing / is positioned
• пакетик лежит = the packet is lying / is positioned

Russian uses present-tense forms for these static descriptions.

A useful basic rule is:

• стоять: upright objects, or objects conventionally thought of as standing
• лежать: horizontal objects, loose objects, or things resting flat
• висеть: hanging objects

Examples:

• На столе стоит чашка. = A cup is standing on the table.
• На столе лежит книга. = A book is lying on the table.
• На стене висит картина. = A picture is hanging on the wall.

This is partly about real physical orientation, and partly about how Russian speakers typically conceptualize the object.

The basic form is полка = shelf.

After на in the meaning of location, it goes into the prepositional singular:

• полка → на полке

This is a very common pattern for feminine nouns ending in -а:

• книга → в книге
• комната → в комнате
• полка → на полке

So полке is simply the prepositional form of полка.

Yes. In normal Russian writing, ё is often written as е.

So you may see:

• чёрного
• черного

Both usually represent the same word, and native speakers figure it out from context.

For learners, writing ё is very helpful because it shows the pronunciation more clearly.

Here:

• чёрный = black
• чёрного = genitive singular form

So if you later see черного чая, it means the same thing.

Yes, that is a very literal translation, and it reflects the Russian grammar well.

But in natural English, you would usually say something like:

• There is a jar of jam on the shelf, and a packet of black tea is lying next to it.
• or more simply:
• On the shelf there is a jar of jam, and next to it is a packet of black tea.

So the literal version is useful for learning, but normal English often sounds less “positional” than Russian.