Questions & Answers about Свитер дорогой.
Where is the word for "is" in this sentence?
In Russian, the present tense of the verb "to be" is skipped. You just put the subject (свитер) and the adjective describing it (дорогой) side by side. Literally, the sentence reads "Sweater expensive."
Why does the adjective дорогой end in -ой instead of the usual masculine endings -ый or -ий?
Masculine adjectives end in -ой when the spoken stress falls on the very last syllable. If you say it out loud, the emphasis is heavily on the end: do-ro-GOY. If the stress was earlier in the word, it would use the standard -ый or -ий.
How would we say "The sweaters are expensive" to practice the plural rules from this lesson?
It becomes Свитеры дорогие. The masculine noun adds -ы to become plural. For the adjective, because the root ends in the letter г, the 7-letter spelling rule says we must use the plural ending -ие instead of the regular -ые.
Why does the т in свитер sound hard when spoken, even though it is followed by е?
Normally, the letter е makes the consonant right before it "soft" (palatalized). However, свитер is a borrowed foreign word. In many borrowed words, the consonant stays hard. You pronounce it with a hard "t", sounding more like svi-ter instead of svi-tyer.
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