Questions & Answers about Они играют и слушают музыку.
How do we know to use the -ют ending for играют and слушают?
Both are first conjugation verbs that end in -ать in their dictionary form (играть and слушать). To talk about "them" (they play, they listen), you drop the -ть and add -ют.
Why is it музыку instead of музыка?
The word музыка is the direct object of the sentence, meaning it is the thing being listened to. Because it is a feminine noun ending in -а, its ending changes to -у in this situation. This is known as the accusative case.
In English we say "listen to music", but there is no Russian word for "to" here. Why?
The Russian verb слушать (to listen) does not need an extra preposition like "to". It connects directly to the object, so the sentence is literally structured as "they listen music".
If I wanted to say "we play and listen", how do these plural verbs change?
For the "we" (мы) form of these first conjugation verbs, you use the -ем ending instead of -ют. The sentence would become мы играем и слушаем.
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