Word
Наша квартира на первом этаже.
Meaning
Our flat is on the first floor.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Наша квартира на первом этаже.
наш
our
квартира
apartment
на
on, at / by (transport) / to (a place) / to (in answer to)
первый
first (1st)
Questions & Answers about Наша квартира на первом этаже.
I learned that "one" is один. Why does this sentence use первом instead?
Один is a cardinal number used for counting (one, two, three). Here, we need the ordinal number "first" (первый). In Russian, ordinal numbers behave exactly like adjectives. Because we are talking about location here, первый changes its ending to первом to match the noun it describes.
Why is there no word for "is" in this sentence?
In Russian, the verb "to be" is almost always skipped in the present tense. Instead of saying "Our flat is on the first floor," you simply say "Our flat on the first floor." This is a very common pattern you will see everywhere.
Why does the sentence start with Наша instead of Наш?
Possessive words like "our" must match the gender of the noun they describe. The word for flat, квартира, ends in -а, which makes it a feminine noun. Therefore, we must use the feminine form Наша instead of the masculine form Наш.
Why do the words первом and этаже have those specific endings?
When talking about the location where something is (using the preposition на, meaning "on"), Russian uses the Prepositional case. The masculine noun этаж (floor) adds an -е to become этаже, and its matching adjective changes to первом.