Моя дочка грається в парку.

My daughter plays in the park.

Breakdown of Моя дочка грається в парку.

• мій: my
• в: in
• парк: the park
• дочка: the daughter
• гратися: to play

Questions & Answers about Моя дочка грається в парку.

Why is the possessive pronoun моя used instead of мій?

In Ukrainian, possessive pronouns agree with the noun they modify in gender, number and case.

• дочка (daughter) is feminine, singular, nominative.
• The base pronoun мій (“my”) changes to моя in the feminine singular nominative.

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What is the difference between the verbs грати and гратися, and why is грається used here?

• грати is a transitive verb meaning “to play (something)”, e.g. грати музику (“to play music”). It usually takes a direct object.
• гратися is the reflexive/intransitive counterpart meaning “to play about; to be playing” with no direct object. It’s especially common when talking about children at play.
• Here, грається (3rd person singular present of гратися) simply means “is playing”.

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What grammatical case is парку, and why is it used after в?

• парку is the locative singular of the masculine noun парк.
• After the preposition в meaning “in” (to indicate location), Ukrainian uses the locative case.
• For a hard-stem masculine noun like парк, the locative singular ending is -у, giving в парку (“in the park”).

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Can you say у парку instead of в парку? When do you use в versus у?

Yes. Both в and у mean “in.” Which form you pick often depends on euphony (ease of pronunciation):

• в is used before most consonants and vowels.
• у is chosen to avoid awkward clusters (for example before б, п, м, в, ф).
  In practice, в парку and у парку are both correct; speakers choose the one that sounds smoother in context.

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What tense, person and aspect is the verb грається in?

• Tense: Present
• Person/Number: 3rd person singular (“she/it is …”)
• Aspect: Imperfective (used for ongoing or habitual actions)
  Ukrainian does not have a separate “progressive” tense; the imperfective present covers both simple present and continuous meanings.

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How would you say “My daughter played in the park” using the past tense in both imperfective and perfective aspects?

Imperfective (focus on the action itself):
• Моя дочка гралася в парку. (“My daughter was playing/used to play in the park.”)

Perfective (focus on the action’s completion):
• Моя дочка погралася в парку. (“My daughter has played around in the park” – implying she finished playing.)

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How can you emphasize that the action is happening right now?

Insert an adverb like зараз (“now”) or саме (“just/at this very moment”). Common placements:
• Моя дочка зараз грається в парку.
• Зараз моя дочка грається в парку.

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Where do you place the stress in key words like моя, дочка, грається and парку?

Ukrainian stress can move, but here it lands as follows (capital = stressed syllable):
• моЯ́ (mo-YÁ)
• ДО́Чка (DÓCH-ka)
• ГРА́ється (HRÁ-yet-sya)
• ПА́Рку (PÁR-ku)