Questions & Answers about Нет, это кафе старое.
Why do we use это here instead of этот or эта?
The word for "this" has to match the gender of the noun it points to. Because кафе ends in -е, it is a neuter noun. The neuter form of "this" is это (masculine is этот and feminine is эта).
I thought это кафе meant "This is a cafe". How do I know it means "This cafe" here?
Это can mean "this is", but it can also mean "this specific...". You can tell which one it is by looking at the whole sentence. If the sentence was "This is an old cafe", the adjective would usually come right before the noun: Это старое кафе. Because the sentence is ordered as это кафе старое, it means "This cafe is old."
Why does the adjective старое end in -ое?
Adjectives must match the gender of the noun they describe. Since кафе is neuter, the adjective for "old" takes the standard neuter ending -ое to become старое.
Where is the Russian word for "is" in this sentence?
Russian leaves out the verb "to be" (am, is, are) in the present tense. To say "This cafe is old", you simply place the subject (это кафе) and its description (старое) right next to each other.
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