После дождя на улице грязно.

After the rain, it is dirty outside.

Breakdown of После дождя на улице грязно.

• на: on
• улица: the street
• дождь: the rain
• после: after

Questions & Answers about После дождя на улице грязно.

Why is дождя used after после instead of дождь?

Because после always takes the genitive case. The basic dictionary form is дождь (rain), but after после it changes to дождя.

• дождь = nominative
• после дождя = after rain / after the rain

This is a very common pattern in Russian:

• после урока = after the lesson
• после работы = after work
• после обеда = after lunch

So после дождя is just the normal case form required by the preposition.

Why is it на улице?

Because на улице is a fixed, very common Russian expression meaning outside or out on the street.

Here улица changes to the prepositional case because it follows на in a location meaning:

• улица = street
• на улице = on the street / outside

So grammatically, this is a location phrase: where is it dirty? → на улице.

Does на улице literally mean on the street, or does it mean outside?