На рынке черешня была дороже, чем я ожидал, но дочка всё равно попросила немного черешни.

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Breakdown of На рынке черешня была дороже, чем я ожидал, но дочка всё равно попросила немного черешни.

• на: at
• быть: to be
• но: but

Questions & Answers about На рынке черешня была дороже, чем я ожидал, но дочка всё равно попросила немного черешни.

Why is черешня singular here? Doesn’t the sentence mean cherries?

Yes, in English we would usually say cherries in the plural, but Russian often uses fruit and berry names as singular mass nouns when talking about them as produce or a commodity.

So:

• черешня была дороже = the cherries were more expensive
• literally, it is closer to sweet cherry was more expensive, but that is just how Russian commonly expresses it

Because черешня is singular feminine, the verb is also singular feminine:

• черешня была
• not черешни были

This is very natural in Russian when talking about food being sold at a market.

Why does the sentence later say немного черешни instead of немного черешня?

Because немного normally requires the genitive case.

So:

• черешня = nominative singular
• черешни = genitive singular

In попросила немного черешни, the meaning is asked for a little/some cherries.

This is a very common pattern:

• немного воды = a little water
• немного хлеба = a little bread
• немного черешни = a little/some sweet cherries

So the case changes because of немного.