Breakdown of Студенты спрашивают, а мы отвечаем.
а
and (contrastive)
мы
we
студент
student (m)
спрашивать
to ask
отвечать
to answer
Questions & Answers about Студенты спрашивают, а мы отвечаем.
How do we form the "they" verb спрашивают from its dictionary form?
The dictionary form is спрашивать. To make the "they" form for this first conjugation verb, we drop the -ть and add -ют. So, спрашива- becomes спрашивают (they ask).
Why does отвечаем end in -ем?
This is the matching verb ending for мы (we). The dictionary form is отвечать. We drop the -ть and add the "we" ending -ем to get отвечаем (we answer).
The translation says "and we answer," so why use а instead of и for "and"?
In Russian, а is used to show a slight contrast or a shift in focus between two subjects doing different things. Here, the students are doing one thing (asking), whereas we are doing another (answering). If you used и, it would sound like a simple list rather than highlighting the two different roles.
Why does студенты end in -ы?
That is the standard plural ending for masculine nouns ending in a hard consonant. Since студент ends in the hard consonant т, we just add -ы to make it plural.
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