Breakdown of Был сильный кризис, поэтому у нас был большой убыток в две тысячи девятом году.
большой
big
нас
us
у
at, by
год
year
две
two (f)
быть
to be
в
on / during (a time period)
поэтому
so (therefore)
сильный
strong
тысяча
thousand
девятый
ninth
кризис
the crisis (m)
убыток
the loss (m)
Questions & Answers about Был сильный кризис, поэтому у нас был большой убыток в две тысячи девятом году.
Why do we say в ... году instead of using the standard Prepositional case ending for year?
The word год (year) is a bit of a rebel. When you use it with the preposition в to say something happened 'in a specific year', it takes a special irregular Prepositional case ending: -у. So it becomes в ... году. You will also see this special -у ending on a few other short masculine words when talking about location or time, like в лесу (in the forest).
Why does only девятом change to match году, while две тысячи stays normal?
When expressing a specific year in Russian, you use ordinal numbers (like 'first', 'second', 'ninth' - words that show position), but only for the very last word in the number! So 'two thousand' (две тысячи) stays in its normal, everyday form, and only 'ninth' (девятый) changes to the Prepositional case (девятом) to agree with году.
Why is it две тысячи? Doesn't the number two normally look like два?
The number two has a special feminine form: две. Since the Russian word for thousand (тысяча) is a feminine noun, it requires this feminine form. After the numbers two, three, and four, we use the Genitive singular form of the noun, which turns тысяча into тысячи.
Why is был used twice here?
Был is the masculine past tense of the verb 'to be'. We need it twice because there are two separate past-tense events here. First, 'there was a crisis' (был кризис). Second, 'we had a loss' which in Russian is constructed literally as 'at us was a loss' (у нас был убыток). Since both кризис and убыток are masculine nouns, both verbs stay exactly the same: был.
Why is сильный translated as 'severe' instead of 'strong'?
While сильный literally translates to 'strong', Russians use it to describe the intense degree of many things where English would use 'heavy', 'severe', or 'bad'. Just like you can have a 'strong rain' (сильный дождь), you can have a 'strong crisis' (сильный кризис), which simply sounds much more natural in English as a 'severe crisis'.
Learn Был сильный кризис, поэтому у нас был большой убыток в две тысячи девятом году and more in Russian
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.
- ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
- ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
- ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free