Breakdown of Он живёт в западном городе.
он
he / it (for a masculine noun) / it (for a neuter noun)
город
city
жить
to live
в
in / to (direction)
Questions & Answers about Он живёт в западном городе.
Why does the verb живёт have a в in it when the dictionary word is жить?
The verb жить (to live) has an irregular stem in the present tense. A hidden в appears when you conjugate it. For он (he), the present tense ending is -ёт, making the whole word живёт.
Why do the words for 'western city' change to западном городе?
They are in the prepositional case because they follow the preposition в to show location. The masculine noun город takes the ending -е to become городе. The matching masculine adjective западный changes its dictionary ending to -ом, making it западном.
Where is the word for 'a' in this sentence?
Russian does not use articles like 'a', 'an', or 'the'. The exact meaning depends entirely on context. Он живёт в западном городе can translate perfectly as either 'He lives in a western city' or 'He lives in the western city'.
Why does the second о in городе sound different from the first one?
This is due to vowel reduction. In Russian, only the stressed syllable gets its full vowel sound. In городе, the stress falls on the first о. The unstressed second о sounds much weaker, similar to a short 'uh' sound.