Questions & Answers about Немецкий фильм очень интересный.
Where is the word for 'is' in this sentence?
In Russian, the present tense of the verb 'to be' (am/is/are) is almost always left out. So, Немецкий фильм очень интересный literally translates to 'German film very interesting,' but we naturally understand it as 'The German film is very interesting.'
Why do the adjectives немецкий and интересный have different endings if they both describe the same masculine noun?
They are both in the standard masculine singular form to match the masculine noun фильм. Most masculine adjectives end in -ый, like интересный. However, немецкий ends in -ий because of an important Russian spelling rule: you can never write the letter ы after к (or after г, х, ж, ч, ш, and щ). You must write и instead.
Why is немецкий placed before the noun, but интересный comes after it?
It works just like English! Немецкий (German) directly describes the film, so it goes before the noun to make the phrase 'The German film'. Интересный (interesting) is the main point of the sentence, coming right after our invisible 'is' ('...is very interesting'), so it gets placed at the end.
How do we know it means 'The German film' and not 'A German film'?
Russian doesn't have articles like 'a', 'an', or 'the'. Depending on the context of your conversation, немецкий фильм could mean either 'a German film' or 'the German film'. When it's an isolated sentence like this, 'The German film' usually makes the most sense in English.
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