Breakdown of Мы читаем тексты каждый день, чтобы свободно говорить по-русски.
день
day
мы
we
текст
text
читать
to read
говорить
to speak, to talk
по-русски
in Russian
каждый
every
чтобы
in order to
свободно
fluently
Questions & Answers about Мы читаем тексты каждый день, чтобы свободно говорить по-русски.
Why do we need to use чтобы here? Can't we just use the infinitive to mean 'to speak', like in English?
In English, you can just say 'to speak' to show your purpose. In Russian, the infinitive alone isn't enough. You must use чтобы (in order to) before the infinitive to explain why you are doing the action.
Why is the verb говорить (to speak) in the infinitive here instead of conjugated for 'we'?
When the subject doing the main action is the exact same person doing the goal action, чтобы is followed by an infinitive. Since 'we' are the ones reading and 'we' are also the ones who want to speak, we leave the second verb as the infinitive говорить.
The translation says 'fluently,' but doesn't свободно mean 'freely'?
Yes, exactly! The literal translation is 'to speak Russian freely.' In Russian, doing something свободно (freely) is the standard and most natural way to express that you do it 'fluently.'
Why don't the endings of тексты or каждый день change?
Actually, both тексты (texts) and каждый день (every day) are in the accusative case here! Тексты is the direct object, and каждый день is a time expression. Because тексты is plural inanimate, and день is masculine inanimate, their accusative forms look exactly the same as their basic dictionary forms.
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