Questions & Answers about Детство было счастливое.
In this lesson, we use было for age. Is it doing the same thing here?
Not quite! In age expressions like мне было десять лет (I was ten years old), было is an impersonal "default" word that never changes. In this sentence, it is the regular past tense of the verb "to be." It specifically takes the neuter form было to match the neuter noun детство (childhood).
The translation says "My childhood," but I don't see a word for "my". Why is it left out?
Russian often drops possessive words like моё (my) when the meaning is obvious from the context. If you are talking about your own life, simply saying Детство было... naturally implies that you mean your childhood.
Why does the word for happy (счастливое) end in -ое?
Adjectives must match the gender of the noun they describe. Because детство is a neuter noun, the adjective счастливый takes the neuter ending -ое, becoming счастливое.
How do I pronounce the beginning of счастливое?
This word has a couple of pronunciation tricks! First, the letter combination сч is pronounced like the letter щ (a soft "sh" sound). Second, the т is completely silent. It sounds closer to "shas-lee-vuh-ye".
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