Learn Hardcore Russian: Раз дождь закончился, давай хотя бы немного погуляем у реки. - Since the rain has stopped, let’s at least walk by the river a little.

Word

Раз дождь закончился, давай хотя бы немного погуляем у реки.

Meaning

Since the rain has stopped, let’s at least walk by the river a little.

Part of speech

sentence

Pronunciation

Course

Lesson

Breakdown of Раз дождь закончился, давай хотя бы немного погуляем у реки.

What does раз mean at the beginning of the sentence?

Here раз does not mean one time or once.

At the start of a sentence, раз can be a conjunction meaning something like:

So Раз дождь закончился... means roughly Since / now that the rain has stopped...

This use is fairly common in spoken Russian and sounds conversational.

Why is there a comma after закончился?

Because Раз дождь закончился is a subordinate clause, and it is followed by the main clause:

Russian uses commas very regularly to separate clauses, often more consistently than English does.

Why is it дождь закончился? Why is дождь in the nominative case?

Because дождь is the subject of the verb закончился.

In Russian, the thing that comes to an end is the grammatical subject:

So дождь stays in the nominative case.

English often says the rain stopped, and Russian works similarly here.

Why does the verb закончился end in ?