Questions & Answers about Мы дома, а кот там.
Where is the verb "are" after the pronoun Мы?
Мы means "we". In Russian, the present tense of the verb "to be" (am, is, are) is almost always skipped. So, Мы дома literally translates to "We at home".
Why does the sentence use а for "and" instead of и?
а is a conjunction used to show a slight contrast. Here, we are contrasting two subjects and their locations: we are at home, whereas the cat is somewhere else. If we were both in the exact same situation, we would use и.
The word for house is дом. Why is there an "а" at the end of дома?
While дом means a building or a house, дома is a special fixed word that specifically means "at home" or "indoors".
If I wanted to replace кот (cat) with a pronoun, which one from this lesson would I use?
You would use он (he). In Russian, pronouns must match the grammatical gender of the noun. Since кот ends in a consonant, it is a masculine noun and is replaced by он, even if we might just say "it" in English.