Breakdown of Рыба плывёт в море.
море
sea
в
in / to (direction)
рыба
fish
плыть
to swim, to sail (one direction)
Questions & Answers about Рыба плывёт в море.
Since the current lesson focuses on multidirectional verbs, why is "плывёт" used here?
The verb плывёт is from плыть, which is unidirectional. Just like the difference between идти and ходить, плыть shows the fish is swimming in one continuous direction right now. Its multidirectional pair is плавать. If the sentence meant the fish was swimming back and forth, or just swimming around aimlessly, we would use плавает.
Does "в море" show a destination or a location here?
Here, it shows a location, so it is in the Prepositional case. Even though the fish is moving, the entire action is taking place inside the sea. Neuter nouns ending in -е like море look exactly the same in the Nominative and Prepositional cases.
The infinitive for swimming is "плыть", so where does the "в" in "плывёт" come from?
Like many Russian verbs, плыть undergoes a stem change when conjugated in the present tense. A -в- is added before the standard endings, giving us forms like я плыву, ты плывёшь, and он/она/оно плывёт.
In English, "fish" can be singular or plural. How do we know it is singular here?
In Russian, рыба is strictly singular. You can also tell by the verb плывёт, which is in the singular he/she/it form. If we were talking about multiple fish, the noun would take the plural form рыбы, and the verb would change to match it (рыбы плывут).