Question 1

Why are the words for "boxes" and "jars" spelled коробок and банок? Where did the extra о come from?

Accepted Answer

The dictionary forms are коробка (box) and банка (jar). Since both are feminine nouns ending in -а, their Genitive plural form drops the -а (giving them a "zero ending"). However, this leaves two consonants at the end (-бк and -нк), which is hard to say. To make it easier to pronounce, Russian inserts a "fill vowel" (usually о or е) between the consonants.

Question 2

Why do we use the Genitive plural here instead of the regular plural?

Accepted Answer

In Russian, numbers 5 and above (like пять and шесть) require the noun that follows them to be in the Genitive plural case. If it were 2, 3, or 4 boxes, we would use the Genitive singular instead (две коробки).

Question 3

We had multiple boxes and jars, so why is the verb было (neuter singular) instead of были (plural)?

Accepted Answer

When the subject of a sentence is a quantity phrase using numbers 5 or higher (like пять коробок), the past tense verb defaults to the neuter singular form (было). You might sometimes hear были in casual speech, but было is the standard grammar rule for these number phrases.

Question 4

Just as a refresher, why doesn't the sentence use мы for "we"?

Accepted Answer

Russian expresses "to have" using the structure у + [someone in the Genitive case] + the verb "to be". So "we had" is phrased literally as "at us there was" (у нас было). The things being owned are technically the grammatical subjects of the sentence, which is why we don't use the subject pronoun мы.

У нас было пять коробок и шесть банок.

Breakdown of У нас было пять коробок и шесть банок.

Questions & Answers about У нас было пять коробок и шесть банок.

Learn У нас было пять коробок и шесть банок and more in Russian