Questions & Answers about День короткий.
Why is there no word for "is" in this sentence?
In Russian, the present tense of the verb "to be" (am, is, are) is almost always left out. So, День короткий literally translates to "Day short", but it means "The day is short."
Where is the word for "the"?
Russian does not have articles like "a", "an", or "the". You can usually figure out if a word means "a day" or "the day" based on the context of the conversation.
How do we know the gender of день if it ends in a soft sign?
Why does короткий end in -ий instead of the standard masculine adjective ending -ый?
This is because of a fundamental Russian spelling rule. After the letter к (and six other specific consonants), you are never allowed to write the vowel ы. Instead, you must replace it with и. That is why the ending changes to -ий here.
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