Breakdown of Студент прочитал доклад в половине седьмого.
студент
student (m)
прочитать
to read (perfective)
в
on / during (a time period)
седьмой
seventh
Questions & Answers about Студент прочитал доклад в половине седьмого.
Why does the sentence use седьмого (seventh) when the English translation says "half past six"?
In Russian, traditional half-hours are expressed by looking ahead to the next hour. You are literally saying "half of the seventh hour." Because 6:30 is halfway through the seventh hour of the day, you use the ordinal number for seven (седьмой) in the genitive case (седьмого).
Why is the word for half written as в половине here instead of just половина?
To say at a certain time involving a half hour, you use the preposition в plus the prepositional case. That is why половина changes to в половине. If you just wanted to state the current time without "at", you would drop the preposition and use the nominative case: Сейчас половина седьмого.
The verb прочитал means "read". Does this mean he just read the report to himself?
No, he presented it. In Russian, the standard phrase for delivering a presentation, giving a speech, or presenting a report is читать доклад (or the perfective прочитать доклад as seen here). Even though it literally translates to "read a report," it means presenting it to an audience.
Why doesn't the ending of доклад change, since it is the direct object of the sentence?
The word доклад is actually in the accusative case here because it is the direct object. However, for masculine inanimate nouns (things and concepts, not people or animals), the accusative case takes the exact same form as the nominative dictionary form.