Questions & Answers about У нас мало муки и мало мёда.
Why do мука (flour) and мёд (honey) change to муки and мёда here?
They change to the genitive case because of the word мало (little/not much). In Russian, words that measure quantity like мало, много (a lot), and сколько (how much) require the noun that follows them to be in the genitive case.
I know that feminine nouns ending in -а usually take an -ы ending in the genitive case. Why is it муки with an -и?
This is because of a very important spelling rule often called the 7-letter rule. It states that you can never write the letter ы after the letters к, г, х, ш, ж, ч, or щ. Since the stem of мука ends in a к, we must use и instead, making it муки.
Does мало mean the same thing as маленький (small)?
Why does the sentence start with У нас to mean "We have"?
Russian doesn't typically use a direct verb for "to have" in everyday speech. Instead, it uses a structure that literally translates to "by us is." The word У means "by" or "at," and нас is the genitive form of мы (we).
Do I have to repeat the word мало before every noun in a list?
Not at all! You could naturally say У нас мало муки и мёда (We have little flour and honey) and it would be perfectly correct. Repeating мало in this sentence just emphasizes that you are running low on both items individually.
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