Word
Иван покупает билеты в четверг.
Meaning
Ivan is buying tickets on Thursday.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Иван покупает билеты в четверг.
покупать
to buy
билет
ticket
Иван
Ivan
в
on / during (a time period)
Questions & Answers about Иван покупает билеты в четверг.
To say "on Thursday", why do we use в before the day of the week?
In Russian, to say that an event happens on a specific day of the week, you use the preposition в followed by the day in the Accusative case.
The lesson says в takes the Accusative case for days of the week. Why hasn't четверг changed its ending?
That is because четверг is a masculine noun for a non-living thing. For inanimate masculine nouns, the Accusative case is identical to the dictionary form (the Nominative case). It only visibly changes for feminine days like среда (Wednesday), which becomes в среду.
Билеты (tickets) is the object being bought. Does it also need the Accusative case?
Yes, it is in the Accusative case! But just like the rule for четверг, the Accusative plural form for non-living things looks exactly the same as the Nominative plural form. So the plural of билет is билеты in both situations.
How would I ask "When is Ivan buying tickets?" to get this sentence as an answer?
You would use the question word когда (when). You simply put it at the beginning of the sentence to ask: Когда Иван покупает билеты?