Word
Эти джинсы дешёвые, а не дорогие.
Meaning
These jeans are cheap, not expensive.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Эти джинсы дешёвые, а не дорогие.
не
not
а
and (contrastive)
этот
this [f: эта, n: это]
дорогой
expensive
Questions & Answers about Эти джинсы дешёвые, а не дорогие.
Why is it эти and not just это?
Это is often used by itself to mean "this is" (like Это джинсы - "These are jeans"). But when you want to say "these specific jeans", you need the plural matching word эти. So эти джинсы means "these jeans".
Is the word джинсы always plural, just like "jeans" in English?
Yes! Just like in English, words for clothes with two legs like джинсы (jeans) or брюки (pants) are always plural in Russian. That is why every word connected to it in this sentence—эти, дешёвые, and дорогие—must also be in the plural form.
Why does дешёвые end in -ые but дорогие ends in -ие?
Both are plural adjectives. The standard plural ending is -ые, which we see in дешёвые. However, Russian has a strict spelling rule: you can never write the letter ы after г, к, х, ж, ч, ш, or щ. Since the stem of дорогие ends in г, we are forced to change the ending to -ие.
Why do we use а не here instead of но не?