Word
На площади много голубей.
Meaning
There are many pigeons in the square.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of На площади много голубей.
площадь
square
много
a lot
на
on, at / by (transport) / to (a place) / to (in answer to)
голубь
pigeon
Questions & Answers about На площади много голубей.
Why does голубей end in -ей here?
It is the genitive plural form of голубь (pigeon). The word много (many) requires the following noun to be in the genitive plural. Because the dictionary form голубь ends in a soft sign (-ь), it takes the -ей ending in this case.
Why is the prepositional case ending площади instead of площаде?
Площадь (square) is a feminine noun ending in a soft sign (-ь). These types of nouns always take an -и ending in the prepositional case to show location, unlike the standard -е ending you see on most regular masculine and feminine words.
The English translation says 'in the square', so why do we use на instead of в?
Russian uses на (literally 'on') for open, flat public spaces like a square (площадь), street (улица), or market (рынок). You can think of it as the pigeons being physically 'on' the surface of the square.
There is no verb in the Russian sentence. How does it mean 'There are'?
Russian usually drops the verb 'to be' in the present tense. Instead of using a direct translation for 'there are', Russian simply states the location (На площади) and the quantity (много голубей).