Breakdown of Фиолетовый цвет очень красивый.
красивый
beautiful
очень
very
цвет
color
фиолетовый
purple, violet
Questions & Answers about Фиолетовый цвет очень красивый.
Both фиолетовый and красивый end in -ый. Why?
They are both masculine adjectives describing the masculine noun цвет (colour). If you wanted to ask "What colour?", you would use the masculine question word какой, as in Какой это цвет? The -ый ending on the adjectives matches the masculine gender of the question word!
In English we just say "Purple is very beautiful." Why add the word цвет here?
In Russian, color words like фиолетовый are strictly adjectives, meaning they need a noun to attach to. Unlike English, you cannot usually use a color adjective as a standalone noun. To make it the subject of the sentence, you must literally say "The purple colour".
Where is the word for "is" in this sentence?
Russian leaves out the verb "to be" (am, is, are) in the present tense. To say "is very beautiful", you simply place the description очень красивый directly after the subject фиолетовый цвет.
Could I change the word order and say очень красивый фиолетовый цвет?
You could, but it changes the meaning! Here, фиолетовый цвет is the subject, and очень красивый is what you are saying about it. If you group them all before the noun as очень красивый фиолетовый цвет, it becomes a fragment meaning "a very beautiful purple colour" rather than a full sentence.
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