Questions & Answers about Зимой день короткий.
Why is 'in winter' translated as зимой instead of using a preposition like в?
In Russian, to say that something happens in a certain season, you do not use a preposition. Instead, you change the ending of the season's name. Зима (winter) becomes зимой (in winter). This uses a grammatical form called the instrumental case, which is commonly used to turn seasons and parts of the day into time expressions.
Where is the word for 'is' in this sentence?
Russian leaves out the verb 'to be' in the present tense. So, instead of saying 'the day is short', you literally just say 'day short' (день короткий).
Why does короткий end in -ий instead of the standard masculine adjective ending -ый?
This happens because of a very important Russian spelling rule. After the seven letters к, г, х, ж, ч, ш, and щ, you can never write the letter ы. Because the stem of короткий ends in к, it must take the -ий ending instead.
Does the word order matter here? Could I say День короткий зимой instead?
You could say that, and the meaning would be exactly the same. However, Russian often puts the time or setting at the very beginning of the sentence to 'set the stage' for the listener. Starting with Зимой emphasizes the timeframe right away.
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