Breakdown of Писатель хорошо знает журналиста.
знать
to know
хорошо
well
журналист
journalist
писатель
writer
Questions & Answers about Писатель хорошо знает журналиста.
Why does the word for journalist end with -a (журналиста)?
In this sentence, the journalist is the direct object (the person being known). Because журналист is a masculine noun for a living being (animate), it takes the ending -a in the Accusative case.
Писатель is also a living person. Why doesn't its ending change too?
Писатель is the subject of the sentence (the one doing the knowing), so it stays in the dictionary form (Nominative case). Only the target of the action gets the Accusative case. If the sentence meant the journalist knows the writer, it would be reversed: Журналист хорошо знает писателя.
I remember seeing -а as a feminine ending. Does журналиста mean a female journalist here?
No, it is still a male journalist. While -а often marks feminine dictionary forms, here it is the Accusative case ending for a masculine animate noun. A female journalist is журналистка, and its Accusative form would be журналистку.
Why is the word order хорошо знает (well knows) instead of the other way around?
In Russian, adverbs like хорошо (well) usually come right before the verb they describe, rather than after the verb as they typically do in English.