Questions & Answers about Мальчики обычно играют там.
How do we get the form играют from the dictionary word играть?
Играть (to play) is a first conjugation verb. Because the subject is мальчики (the boys), we need the 'they' form of the verb. We drop the -ть from the dictionary form and add the plural ending -ют to get играют.
Why does the plural word мальчики end in -и instead of the usual masculine plural -ы?
For most masculine words ending in a consonant, you make them plural by adding -ы. But мальчик ends in к. A major Russian spelling rule (the 7-letter rule) says you can never write ы after the letters к, г, х, ш, щ, ж, or ч. Because of this, we must use -и instead.
Why do the o letters in обычно sound different from each other?
In Russian, the letter о only sounds like a clear 'oh' when it is stressed. The stress in this word falls on the middle syllable (обы́чно). The unstressed о at the beginning and the end reduce to a short 'a' or 'uh' sound, making it sound roughly like 'ah-BYCH-nuh'.
Does the adverb обычно have to go before the verb?
Russian word order is very flexible, so you could move it around. However, putting adverbs of frequency like обычно (usually) right before the verb is the most natural and standard word order, just like in English.
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