Breakdown of Русский язык сложный, но интересный.
интересный
interesting
язык
language
но
but
сложный
difficult, complex
русский
Russian
Questions & Answers about Русский язык сложный, но интересный.
Why does this sentence use но instead of а?
We use но when presenting a contrast or a slight contradiction, just like 'but' in English. 'Difficult' and 'interesting' are contrasting ideas here (it is hard, but despite that, it is interesting). The word а is instead used to show a difference between two separate subjects (for example, 'I speak Russian, but he speaks English').
Where is the verb 'is' in this sentence?
In the present tense, Russian almost always leaves out the verb 'to be' (am, is, are). So, Русский язык сложный literally translates word-for-word as 'Russian language difficult'.
Why do both сложный and интересный end in -ый?
They are both adjectives describing the noun язык (language). Because язык is a masculine noun, the adjectives describing it must take the masculine ending, which is most commonly -ый.
Is the comma before но required?
Yes! In Russian punctuation rules, you must always put a comma before subordinating and contrasting conjunctions like но (but), а (and/but), and потому что (because).
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