Хозяйка квартиры попросила меня закрыть окно перед уходом.

Because the subject is хозяйка (landlady / female owner / hostess), which is a feminine noun.

In the past tense, Russian verbs agree with the subject in gender and number:

• попросил = he asked
• попросила = she asked
• попросило = it asked
• попросили = they asked

So Хозяйка квартиры попросила... means The landlady asked...

Квартиры is genitive singular because it shows possession or relationship: the landlady of the apartment.

This is a very common Russian pattern:

• хозяйка квартиры = the owner/landlady of the apartment
• дверь комнаты = the door of the room
• центр города = the center of the city

So here:

• хозяйка = landlady / female owner
• квартиры = of the apartment

Because меня is the accusative form of я (I), and here it is the person being asked.

The pattern is:

• попросить кого? = to ask whom?
• попросить меня = to ask me
• попросить его = to ask him
• попросить нас = to ask us

So in this sentence:

• попросила меня закрыть окно = asked me to close the window

This is a very common Russian pattern:

попросить + someone (accusative) + infinitive

So:

• попросила = asked
• меня = me
• закрыть = to close
• окно = the window

Literally: asked me to close the window

More examples:

• Она попросила меня помочь. = She asked me to help.
• Я попросил его подождать. = I asked him to wait.
• Они попросили нас прийти раньше. = They asked us to come earlier.

Because закрыть is the perfective infinitive, and here the request is about completing one whole action: close the window.

Russian often uses the perfective infinitive after verbs like попросить, when the speaker means a single completed action.

Compare:

• закрыть окно = to close the window (one completed act)
• закрывать окно = to be closing / to close repeatedly / to close in general

In this sentence, the landlady is asking for one specific result: that the window end up closed. So закрыть is the natural choice.

It is in the accusative — it just happens to look the same as the nominative.

Окно is a neuter inanimate noun. For many neuter inanimate nouns, nominative and accusative singular are identical:

• nominative: окно
• accusative: окно

So:

• закрыть окно = to close the window

This is normal and very common in Russian.

Перед can mean before in time, and when it is used this way, it takes the instrumental case.

So:

• перед
  • instrumental = before
• уход = departure / leaving
• уходом = instrumental singular

Therefore:

• перед уходом = before leaving / before departure

Examples:

• перед сном = before sleep / before going to bed
• перед экзаменом = before the exam
• перед отъездом = before departure

By context, it most naturally means before my leaving — that is, before the speaker leaves.

Why? Because the sentence says:

• она попросила меня закрыть окно = she asked me to close the window

So the most logical reading is:

• She asked me to close the window before I left.

But grammatically, перед уходом by itself does not explicitly say whose departure it is. If Russian wants to make it fully explicit, it can say:

• перед моим уходом = before my leaving
• перед её уходом = before her leaving

So the original sentence relies on context, which Russian often does.

Yes, it could.

You can say:

• Хозяйка квартиры попросила меня закрыть окно перед уходом.

or

• Хозяйка квартиры попросила, чтобы я закрыл окно перед уходом.

Both are possible, but the infinitive structure is usually more direct and very common after попросить.

The version with чтобы sounds a little more like a full subordinate clause:

• asked that I close the window

The infinitive version is usually the more natural everyday choice here.

This is an aspect question.

• попросила = perfective
• просила = imperfective

In this sentence, попросила presents the request as a single completed event: she asked me once.

Compare:

• Хозяйка попросила меня закрыть окно.
  = The landlady asked me to close the window.
  (a single request, completed event)

• Хозяйка просила меня закрыть окно.
  = The landlady was asking / used to ask / asked me
  (more process-like, repeated, backgrounded, or less bounded depending on context)

In a simple narrative sentence about one request, попросила is usually the most natural choice.

Russian has no articles like a or the.

Whether something is understood as a landlady, the landlady, a window, or the window comes from context.

So:

• Хозяйка квартиры can mean the landlady / the apartment owner
• окно can mean a window or the window

In a normal real-life context, English naturally translates this as the landlady and the window, because both are probably already known in the situation.

Not always exactly.

Хозяйка literally means something like female owner / mistress / hostess, depending on context.
So хозяйка квартиры is literally the female owner of the apartment.

Depending on the situation, English might translate it as:

• landlady
• apartment owner
• hostess
• the woman who owns the apartment

If this is about a rented apartment, landlady is often the best natural translation.

The word order here is quite neutral and natural:

Хозяйка квартиры попросила меня закрыть окно перед уходом.

It moves from subject to verb to object/complement in a straightforward way.

Russian word order is flexible, so other versions are possible, for example:

• Перед уходом хозяйка квартиры попросила меня закрыть окно.
  = Before leaving, the landlady asked me to close the window.

• Меня хозяйка квартиры попросила закрыть окно перед уходом.
  = It was me that the landlady asked to close the window.

The original version is probably the most neutral if you are simply stating the fact.

No. Уходом comes from the noun уход (departure, leaving, care depending on context).

Here it means departure / leaving.

So:

• уйти = to leave
• уход = departure / leaving
• перед уходом = before leaving

Russian often uses nouns like this where English might use a verb form:

• перед уходом = before leaving
• literally: before the departure

Yes, definitely.

For example:

• Перед уходом хозяйка квартиры попросила меня закрыть окно.

This means the same thing. Putting перед уходом first gives it a bit more prominence, like Before leaving, ...

Russian allows this kind of movement much more freely than English.

Yes. In most contexts, закрыть окно can be translated as either close the window or shut the window.

• close the window is the most neutral translation
• shut the window is also possible in English, depending on style

Russian закрыть is a broad verb meaning to close / shut.

A word-for-word breakdown would be:

• Хозяйка = landlady / female owner
• квартиры = of the apartment
• попросила = asked
• меня = me
• закрыть = to close
• окно = window
• перед = before
• уходом = departure / leaving (instrumental)

Very literal order:

The landlady of the apartment asked me to close the window before leaving.

That is not always the prettiest English, but it matches the Russian structure closely.