Breakdown of Раньше они часто встречались в парке.
парк
park
они
they
часто
often
в
in / to (direction)
раньше
earlier
встречаться
to meet (each other)
Questions & Answers about Раньше они часто встречались в парке.
Why does the verb встречались end in -сь instead of -ся?
This is the past tense plural of the reflexive verb встречаться (to meet each other). When making a reflexive verb past tense, you add -ся after consonants, but -сь after vowels. Since the regular plural past tense ending is -ли (which ends in a vowel), we add -сь to get -лись.
How does the reflexive ending change the meaning of the verb here?
The reflexive ending -сь in this sentence shows that the action is shared, meaning they met each other. If they were meeting a different person, you would use the regular non-reflexive verb встречали and then state who they met.
Is раньше the standard way to translate "used to" in Russian?
Yes! While раньше literally translates to "earlier" or "in the past", Russian does not have a specific grammatical structure for "used to". You simply use раньше alongside a past tense verb to describe a repeated past habit.
Why is there an -е at the end of в парке?
Because the park is the location where the action happened, the word must be in the Prepositional case. The basic dictionary word is парк, and we add an -е to the end after the preposition в to mean "in the park".
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