Question 1

Why does сильный end in -ый?

Accepted Answer

It is an adjective describing человек. Since человек is a masculine noun acting as the subject of the sentence, the adjective takes the basic masculine ending -ый.

Question 2

Does человек mean "man" or "person"?

Accepted Answer

человек means "person" or "human" in general, regardless of their actual gender. However, in Russian grammar, the word itself is always masculine, which is why it uses the masculine adjective сильный. If you wanted to specifically say "man", you would use мужчина.

Question 3

Why does работает end in -ет?

Accepted Answer

This is the "he/she/it" form of the verb работать (to work). Because the subject of the sentence is one person (человек), we drop the -ть from the dictionary form and add the third-person singular ending -ет.

Question 4

How do we know быстро means "fast" as an adverb and not an adjective?

Accepted Answer

In Russian, you can often turn an adjective into an adverb (a word that describes an action) by replacing its ending with -о. Since быстро ends in -о, it means "quickly" or "fast" and describes how the person works. The adjective form describing a noun would be быстрый.

Сильный человек работает быстро.

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