Questions & Answers about Французский город очень красивый.
Why isn't there a word for 'is' in this sentence?
In Russian, the present tense of the verb 'to be' is almost never used. Instead of saying 'The city is beautiful,' you simply put the subject and the describing words together: город очень красивый.
Why do французский and красивый have different endings (-ий vs -ый) if they are both masculine?
Most masculine adjectives end in -ый, like красивый. However, Russian has a 7-letter spelling rule: you can never write the letter ы after к, г, х, ж, ч, ш, or щ. Since the word for French has a к before the ending, we must use -ий instead, making it французский.
How do we know to use the masculine forms for 'French' and 'beautiful'?
Adjectives must match the gender of the noun they describe. The noun here is город (city), which is masculine because it ends in a consonant (д). Because of this, both adjectives describing it (французский and красивый) must also be in their masculine forms.
Why is 'The' included in the English translation if there is no Russian word for it here?
Russian does not have articles like 'a', 'an', or 'the'. A noun like город can mean either 'a city' or 'the city'. You just rely on context to know which one makes sense. In this case, 'The French city' is the most natural English translation.
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