Questions & Answers about Почему директор сегодня сердит?
Why use сердит instead of the regular adjective сердитый?
сердит is a short-form adjective. In Russian, short forms are often used to describe temporary states or conditions. Because the director is angry today (a passing mood), сердит sounds much more natural. Using the long form сердитый would imply he is an angry person in general!
What if the director was female? How would the ending of сердит change?
Short-form adjectives must match the gender and number of the person or thing they describe. Since директор is grammatically masculine here, we use the base form сердит. If you were talking about a female director, you would add an -а to make it feminine: Почему директор сегодня сердита?
Where is the word for "is" in this sentence?
In the present tense, Russian drops the verb "to be" (is/am/are). The subject директор links directly to the short adjective сердит to mean "the director is angry." If we were talking about the past, we would need to add the past tense verb был (was).
Could I put сегодня at the end of the sentence instead?
Yes, Russian word order is very flexible. Saying Почему директор сердит сегодня? is perfectly fine and means the same thing. Putting сегодня right before the adjective just puts a little extra focus on the fact that his anger is happening specifically today.