Breakdown of Пекарь делал тесто час, а испёк пирог за десять минут.
а
and (contrastive)
делать
to do
десять
ten
час
hour
минута
minute
пирог
pie
пекарь
baker
тесто
dough
за
in (within a period of time)
испечь
to bake (perfective)
Questions & Answers about Пекарь делал тесто час, а испёк пирог за десять минут.
Why does 'for an hour' have no preposition, but 'in ten minutes' uses the preposition 'за'?
This showcases the core rule of this lesson! To express how long an ongoing process lasted, we use the bare Accusative case (час), which pairs with the imperfective verb делал. To express how much time it took to fully complete an action, we use за + Accusative (за десять минут), paired with the perfective verb испёк.
Why is the word for minutes in the form 'минут'? Doesn't the preposition 'за' require the Accusative case?
You are right that за takes the Accusative case here, and the number десять is indeed in the Accusative case. However, in Russian, numbers five and above force the noun that follows them into the Genitive plural. So the feminine noun минута changes to its Genitive plural form, минут.
The verb 'испёк' (baked) is past tense, but it doesn't end in '-л'. Why?
This is the perfective past tense of испечь (to bake). Russian verbs that end in -чь in their dictionary form have irregular past tenses, and they usually drop the -л ending in the masculine form. If the baker were a woman, it would take the regular feminine ending: испекла.
Could I use 'но' instead of 'а' to mean 'but' in this sentence?
You will sometimes hear но, but а is much more natural here. The word а is used to contrast two parallel situations—in this case, making the dough versus baking the pie, and the long duration versus the quick completion. We reserve но for direct contradictions or unexpected obstacles.
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