Breakdown of Студент сделал работу и ответил на вопрос.
и
and
студент
student (m)
работа
work, job
на
on, at / by (transport) / to (a place) / to (in answer to)
вопрос
question
сделать
to do (perfective) / to make (perfective)
ответить
to answer (perfective)
Questions & Answers about Студент сделал работу и ответил на вопрос.
Why does the sentence use сделал and ответил instead of делал and отвечал?
These verbs are in the perfective aspect. We use perfective verbs for past actions that were completely finished and produced a clear result. The student did not just spend time working and answering; he successfully finished doing the work and gave the answer. If we used the imperfective forms (делал and отвечал), it would mean he was in the middle of doing them, or did them repeatedly.
Why did работа change to работу?
Because работа (work) is the direct object of the verb - it is the thing that was done. This means it must be in the accusative case. For feminine nouns ending in -а, the accusative ending changes to -у.
Why is there a на before вопрос, and why did not the word вопрос change its ending?
In Russian, the verb to answer (ответить) is followed by the preposition на (literally: to answer onto something) when pointing to what is being answered. This preposition requires the accusative case. However, because вопрос (question) is a masculine, non-living (inanimate) noun, its accusative form looks exactly like its basic dictionary form. That is why the word does not change.
Why do both verbs end in -л here?
In the past tense, Russian verbs must match the gender of the subject. The subject here is студент (student), which is a masculine noun. Therefore, both verbs take the masculine past tense ending -л. If the sentence was about a female student (студентка), the verbs would end in -ла (сделала, ответила).
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