Breakdown of Где мой ключ? Он в сумке.
где
where / wherever
он
he / it (for a masculine noun) / it (for a neuter noun)
сумка
bag
мой
my / mine
ключ
key
в
in / to (direction)
Questions & Answers about Где мой ключ? Он в сумке.
Why does the word for bag change from сумка to в сумке?
This is the Prepositional case, which is used to talk about locations. When you use the preposition в (in) to say where something is, feminine nouns that end in -а (like сумка) change their ending to -е.
Why does the second sentence start with Он (he) if we are talking about a key?
In Russian, all objects have a grammatical gender. The word ключ ends in a consonant, which makes it a masculine noun. Because it is masculine, we use the pronoun он to refer to it, even though in English we translate it as "it".
Why is the word for "my" мой and not моя?
Words like "my" have to match the gender of the noun they describe. Since ключ is a masculine noun, we use the masculine form мой. If you were asking about a feminine object like сумка (bag), you would use моя.
I don't see a verb in "Он в сумке". How do we say "It is in the bag"?
Russian drops the verb "to be" (am, is, are) in the present tense. You just put the subject and the location together. So, Он в сумке literally translates to "He in bag".
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