Questions & Answers about Стихи красивые.
Why is Стихи plural if the English translation uses the singular word "poetry"?
In Russian, стих means a single verse or poem. To talk about "poetry" as a general concept or a collection of work, Russians use the plural form стихи. Even though we translate it as the singular "poetry" in English, grammatically it acts as a plural noun in Russian.
We are learning the Accusative case for inanimate objects. Why isn't стихи in the Accusative here?
The Accusative case is used for direct objects, which are the things receiving an action from a verb (like if you said "I read poetry"). In this sentence, there is no action verb. Стихи is the main subject we are describing, so it stays in the Nominative (dictionary) case.
Where is the word for "is" in this sentence?
Russian completely drops the verb "to be" (am/is/are) in the present tense. To say "The poetry is beautiful," you simply place the subject (стихи) right next to the adjective describing it (красивые).
Why does the adjective красивые end in -ые?
Adjectives must always match the gender and number of the noun they describe. Because стихи is plural, the adjective takes the standard plural Nominative ending, which is -ые.
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