Breakdown of Без словаря студент потеряет пятьдесят баллов.
словарь
dictionary
студент
student (m)
без
without
потерять
to lose (perfective)
пятьдесят
fifty
балл
point
Questions & Answers about Без словаря студент потеряет пятьдесят баллов.
Why is баллов used here instead of the regular plural баллы?
Because of the number пятьдесят (fifty). In Russian, numbers ending in 5 through 9, as well as 0, require the following noun to be in the Genitive plural case. Балл (point) is a masculine noun ending in a consonant, so its Genitive plural takes the -ов ending to become баллов.
I see the word пять inside пятьдесят. How are these 'tens' numbers formed?
Пятьдесят literally means 'five tens' (пять + десят, an old form of ten). A tricky spelling detail to remember: for 50, 60, 70, and 80, the soft sign (ь) stays in the middle of the word right after the first number, but there is no soft sign at the very end.
Why does словарь change to словаря in this sentence?
The preposition без (without) always forces the noun that follows it into the Genitive case. Словарь (dictionary) is a masculine noun ending in a soft sign (ь). To make it Genitive, you drop the soft sign and add -я, making it словаря.
The verb потеряет has a present-tense ending. Why does it translate as 'will lose'?
Потерять is a perfective verb, meaning it focuses on the completion of an action. Perfective verbs don't have a present tense. When you conjugate them using the standard present-tense endings (like the -ет here for 'the student'), you are actually forming the future tense: 'will lose'.
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