Breakdown of Наш семинар был в половине пятого.
наш
our (наш, наша, наше)
быть
to be
в
on / during (a time period)
пятый
fifth
половина
half
семинар
seminar
Questions & Answers about Наш семинар был в половине пятого.
Why does it say пятого (fifth) if the time is half past four?
In Russian, half-hours are expressed by looking ahead to the next hour. The phrase literally means "half of the fifth hour". Because it means "of the fifth", we take the ordinal number for five (пятый) and put it in the Genitive case, making it пятого.
Why do we use в половине here instead of just половина?
Because we are saying that an event happened at a specific time. To say "at half past", you use the preposition в (at) plus the Prepositional case of половина (half), which becomes половине. If you were just stating the current time (e.g., "It is half past four"), you would drop the в and just say: Половина пятого.
How is the word пятого pronounced?
It sounds like "pya-ta-va". This is a great time to remember that in the Genitive adjective endings -ого and -его, the letter г is always pronounced like an English "v".
Why did we use the masculine past tense был?
The past tense verb must match the gender of the subject it belongs to. The subject here is семинар (seminar). Because семинар ends in a consonant, it is a masculine noun, so we use the masculine past tense form был.
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