Пропусти женщину с ребёнком на зебре.

Breakdown of Пропусти женщину с ребёнком на зебре.

с
with
на
at
ребёнок
the child
женщина
the woman
зебра
the zebra crossing
пропустить
to let pass

Questions & Answers about Пропусти женщину с ребёнком на зебре.

Why is пропусти used here instead of пропускай?

Пропусти is the perfective imperative of пропустить. It tells someone to do one complete action: let the woman pass now.

By contrast, пропускай is the imperfective imperative of пропускать. It can sound more like:

  • do this as a process
  • do this regularly / as a general rule
  • keep doing it

In a situation like traffic or crossing the road, пропусти is very natural because the speaker means perform this single action right now.

Why is it женщину and not женщина?

Because женщину is the accusative singular form, and it is the direct object of пропусти.

The base form is женщина.
For most feminine nouns ending in , the accusative singular changes to :

  • женщинаженщину
  • девушкадевушку

So the sentence is literally structured like let through whom?женщину.

Why is it с ребёнком?

Because the preposition с meaning with usually takes the instrumental case when it shows accompaniment.

So:

  • dictionary form: ребёнок
  • instrumental singular: ребёнком

That is why you get с ребёнком = with a child / with the child.

Does с ребёнком mean with her child?

Not necessarily. Grammatically, с ребёнком means with a child or with the child, depending on context.

Russian does not explicitly say her here. The phrase only tells us that the woman is accompanied by a child. In real life, we may assume it is probably her child, but the sentence itself does not state that.

If Russian wanted to be explicit, it could say something like со своим ребёнком = with her own child.

What does на зебре mean? Is it really talking about a zebra?

No. In Russian, зебра is a very common informal word for a zebra crossing / pedestrian crossing, because of the white stripes.

So на зебре means:

  • at the crosswalk
  • on the zebra crossing

A more formal term is пешеходный переход.

What case is зебре, and why?

Зебре is prepositional singular.

Here, на is being used in its location meaning: on / at a place. When на indicates location, it commonly takes the prepositional case:

  • на столе = on the table
  • на улице = in the street / outside
  • на зебре = on / at the crosswalk

So:

  • dictionary form: зебра
  • prepositional singular: зебре
Is пропусти addressed to one person?

Yes. Пропусти is the singular informal imperative.

You use it when speaking to:

  • one person
  • someone you address with ты

If you want the plural or polite/formal form, use:

  • Пропустите женщину с ребёнком на зебре.
Why is there no word for the in this sentence?

Because Russian has no articles like English a / an / the.

So женщину can mean:

  • a woman
  • the woman

The exact meaning depends on context. In this kind of real-world instruction, English often translates it as the woman because the speaker usually means a specific visible person.

The same applies to ребёнком and зебре.

Can the word order change?

Yes. Russian word order is fairly flexible because case endings show the grammatical roles.

The version given:

  • Пропусти женщину с ребёнком на зебре.

is a natural, neutral order.

But other orders are possible, for example:

  • На зебре пропусти женщину с ребёнком.
    This puts more emphasis on where.

  • Женщину с ребёнком пропусти на зебре.
    This emphasizes whom to let through.

Even when the word order changes, the cases still show that:

  • женщину is the object
  • с ребёнком goes with woman
  • на зебре gives the location
Why is ё used in ребёнком? Do Russians always write it?

The letter ё shows both the sound yo and the stress.

So ребёнком is pronounced roughly ry-byon-kam, with the stress on -ён-.

In everyday Russian writing, people often replace ё with е, so you may also see:

  • ребенком

But the intended pronunciation is still usually ребёнком. In learning materials, dictionaries, and careful writing, ё is often shown because it helps learners.

Where is the stress in this sentence?

The standard stress is:

  • пропусти́
  • же́нщину
  • с ребёнком
  • на зе́бре

So the whole sentence is:

Пропусти́ же́нщину с ребёнком на зе́бре.

Stress matters in Russian, so it is good to learn words together with their stress patterns.

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