В нашей семье принято ужинать вместе.

in

Breakdown of В нашей семье принято ужинать вместе.

• ужинать: to have dinner
• наш: our
• вместе: together

Questions & Answers about В нашей семье принято ужинать вместе.

What does принято mean here?

Here принято means it is customary, it is the done thing, or it is usual.

So В нашей семье принято ужинать вместе means something like:

• In our family, it is customary to have dinner together
• In our family, we usually eat dinner together
• In our family, it’s the norm to have dinner together

A useful thing to know is that принято comes from the verb принять, but in this kind of sentence it works as a fixed impersonal expression meaning it is accepted/customary.

Why is the sentence impersonal? Where is the word for it is or we?

Russian often uses impersonal constructions where English would use it is or a personal subject like we.

So instead of saying something like:

• We in our family customarily eat dinner together

Russian naturally says:

• В нашей семье принято ужинать вместе

Literally, it is closer to:

• In our family, it is customary to dine together

There is no explicit we, because the sentence is talking about a general family custom, not focusing on the people as the grammatical subject.

Why is it в нашей семье and not в наша семья?