Questions & Answers about Мама готовит пирог.
The translation says Mum is 'making' a pie, but doesn't готовит usually mean 'cooks'?
Yes, готовит comes from the verb готовить, which means 'to cook' or 'to prepare'. In Russian, it is used very broadly for preparing any kind of food or meal, including baking a pie, making a sandwich, or cooking a soup.
Why didn't the ending of пирог change, since it is the object receiving the action?
You are right to look for a case change! Because it receives the action, it is in the Accusative case. However, for masculine nouns that are non-living objects (inanimate), the Accusative form looks exactly the same as the Nominative (dictionary) form. Therefore, пирог stays exactly as it is.
Since we are learning about plurals, how would we change this sentence to say Mum is making 'pies'?
To make the masculine noun пирог plural, we might expect to add -ы. But because it ends in the letter г, we must follow the 7-letter spelling rule that says we use -и instead of -ы after г, к, х, ж, ч, ш, and щ. So, 'pies' becomes пироги, and the sentence would be: Мама готовит пироги.
What if multiple mums are making a pie together? How do we make мама plural?
Мама is a regular feminine noun ending in -а. To make it plural in the Nominative case, we replace the -а with -ы, giving us мамы. You would also have to change the verb to its 'they' form: Мамы готовят пирог.
Learn Мама готовит пирог and more in Russian
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.
- ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
- ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
- ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free