Breakdown of У нас нет золота, потому что это очень дорогой металл.
это
this / it is
мы
we
очень
very
потому что
because
дорогой
expensive
у
at, by
нет
there is no / is not present
золото
gold
металл
metal
Questions & Answers about У нас нет золота, потому что это очень дорогой металл.
Why does the sentence use золота instead of the dictionary form золото?
The phrase у нас нет means 'we do not have' (literally 'at us there is not'). The word нет always requires the noun that follows to be in the Genitive case. Since золото (gold) is a neuter noun, it takes the ending -а in the Genitive case, becoming золота.
Why do we use это (this/it) here instead of оно to match the neuter noun золото?
In Russian, when you are defining or identifying what something is (using the 'X is a Y' structure), you use это as a fixed word meaning 'this is' or 'it is'. It stays as это regardless of the gender of the nouns you are talking about. If you were just describing the gold without adding the new noun металл (e.g., 'it is very expensive'), you would use оно to match золото.
Why does the adjective дорогой (expensive) end in -ой rather than the usual masculine ending -ый?
It has to match the gender of the noun it describes, which is металл (a masculine noun). Masculine adjectives usually end in -ый or -ий, but when the spoken stress of the word falls on the very last syllable, the ending changes to -ой.
Since this lesson is about comparisons, how would we change the end of the sentence to say 'because it is a more expensive metal than silver'?
You would add the word более (more) before the adjective, and then use чем (than) followed by the Nominative case for silver (серебро). The second half of the sentence would become: ...потому что это более дорогой металл, чем серебро.
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