Breakdown of Ты знаешь, где наш кот?
кот
cat
где
where / wherever
ты
you (singular)
наш
our (наш, наша, наше)
знать
to know
Questions & Answers about Ты знаешь, где наш кот?
How do we get the form знаешь from the dictionary word for "to know"?
The dictionary form is знать. Because it is a first conjugation verb, we drop the -ть and add the ending for ты (you, informal), which is -ешь.
Does the soft sign (ь) at the end of знаешь change how it is pronounced?
No, the letter ш is always a hard sound in Russian, so the soft sign doesn't change the pronunciation here. However, Russian spelling rules require every present-tense verb for ты to end with -шь.
Why is there a comma before где?
Russian grammar is very strict about separating clauses (parts of a sentence that represent separate ideas). Because "Do you know" and "where our cat is" are two separate clauses, they must be split by a comma.
Why is there no word for "is" at the end of the Russian sentence?
In Russian, the verb "to be" is almost always skipped in the present tense. You simply say где наш кот (literally "where our cat").
Why do we use наш here instead of наша?
The word наш means "our" for masculine nouns. Since кот (cat) is a masculine word, the pronoun must match it. If we were talking about a female cat (кошка), we would use the feminine form, наша.
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