Breakdown of Она любит гулять со своей младшей сестрой.
сестра
sister
она
she / it (for a feminine noun)
любить
to love, to like
гулять
to walk
с
with (also со)
младший
younger
свой
one's own
Questions & Answers about Она любит гулять со своей младшей сестрой.
Why is the word for "with" со here instead of just с?
In Russian, the preposition с (with) changes to со before words that start with certain consonant clusters, especially those beginning with с or з. Since the next word своей starts with св, the о is added to make it easier to pronounce.
Why does the sentence use своей instead of её for "her"?
The word свой is a reflexive possessive pronoun that means "one's own." Whenever the owner is also the subject of the sentence (here, Она), you must use a form of свой. If you used её here, it would mean she is walking with somebody else's sister.
Why do своей and младшей both end in -ей?
They are in the Instrumental case because they follow the preposition со (with). For feminine singular words, possessive pronouns like своя change to своей, and adjectives like младшая change to младшей. The noun they describe, сестра, takes the feminine Instrumental noun ending, becoming сестрой.
Wait, сестрой ends in -ой, so why don't the pronoun and adjective end in -ой too?
Feminine adjectives and pronouns in the Instrumental case can take either -ой or -ей. Because свой has a soft stem, it takes -ей. For младшая, the consonant ш triggers a Russian spelling rule: when the ending is unstressed after ш, it must be spelled with -ей rather than -ой.
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