Breakdown of Вчера мы увидели её на улице.
она
she / it (for a feminine noun)
улица
street
на
on, at / by (transport) / to (a place) / to (in answer to)
вчера
yesterday
увидеть
to see, to catch sight of (perfective)
Questions & Answers about Вчера мы увидели её на улице.
Why use the perfective verb увидели here instead of the imperfective видели?
While your current lesson is about infinitives, aspect matters in the past tense too! Увидели is perfective, focusing on the specific, completed result of catching sight of her. The imperfective видели would mean you simply saw her for a while as an ongoing process, or it would just state the general fact that you have seen her before.
Why is the pronoun её used here?
Её is the accusative case form of она (she). We use the accusative case for the direct object of a sentence, which is the person or thing directly receiving the action. Since we saw her, she receives the action of being seen.
The English translation says 'in the street', so why does the Russian use на (on) instead of в (in)?
Russian traditionally treats a street as an open surface rather than an enclosed space, so you use на (on) with улица. As a set phrase, на улице is also the most common way to say 'outside' or 'outdoors' in Russian.
What case is улице in?
It is in the prepositional case, which is used to indicate a location answering the question 'where?'. To form this case, the feminine noun улица drops its final -а and adds an -е.
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