Questions & Answers about Дети знают много сказок.
Why is the word for fairy tales сказок instead of just dropping the -а?
The dictionary form is сказка (a feminine noun ending in -а). To make the genitive plural, we drop the -а to get a zero ending. However, this leaves us with сказк, which ends in a difficult consonant cluster. To make it easier to pronounce, Russian inserts a fleeting vowel о between the last two consonants, resulting in сказок.
Since the children 'know' the fairy tales, shouldn't the fairy tales be in the accusative case as the direct object?
Normally, the direct object of a verb is in the accusative case. However, the word много (a lot of / many) is an adverb of quantity. Words like много, мало (few), and сколько (how many) always force the noun that follows them into the genitive case. Because fairy tales are countable, we use the genitive plural here.
The word for children is дети, but isn't the word for child ребёнок?
Yes, exactly! The word for child in Russian is highly irregular. You use ребёнок for one child, but the plural changes to a completely different word: дети (children). This is similar to person/people in English.
Learn Дети знают много сказок and more in Russian
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.
- ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
- ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
- ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free