Breakdown of Она испекла весь торт за час.
она
she / it (for a feminine noun)
час
hour
торт
cake
весь
all, the whole, everything, everyone (весь, вся, всё, все)
за
in (within a period of time)
испечь
to bake (perfective)
Questions & Answers about Она испекла весь торт за час.
Why do we use за час here instead of just час?
Because the verb испекла is perfective (showing a completed action). When you want to express how long it took to achieve a result, you use за plus the Accusative case. If we used the imperfective verb пекла to say she spent an hour baking, we would use the bare Accusative час without за.
Doesn't the preposition за usually mean "behind"?
Yes, when talking about location, за means "behind" (usually followed by the Instrumental case). However, in time expressions with the Accusative case, за indicates the amount of time it takes to complete an action, which we translate as "in" (like "in an hour").
Why does the sentence use весь торт instead of всё торт?
The word for "all" or "whole" has to match the gender and case of the noun it describes. торт is a masculine inanimate noun in the Accusative case because it is the direct object. Therefore, we must use the masculine Accusative form весь. всё is the neuter form.
What is the infinitive of испекла? The ending looks different from regular verbs.
The infinitive is испечь (to bake). Verbs ending in -чь often have irregular past tense forms. The masculine past tense is испёк, but the feminine form adds -ла to the stem, resulting in испекла.
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