Questions & Answers about В городе много молодёжи.
Why is "young people" translated as молодёжи here, and what case is it?
The base word for "young people" or "youth" is молодёжь. After words expressing quantity like много (a lot / many), Russian always uses the Genitive case. Because молодёжь is a feminine noun ending in a soft sign (-ь), its Genitive ending is -и, making it молодёжи.
"Young people" is plural in English. Why does молодёжь act like a singular noun?
Why is there no verb like "are" in this sentence?
In Russian, the present tense of the verb "to be" (is/are) is almost always left out. Literally, this sentence is "In city a lot of youth." To say there were many young people in the past, you would add the neuter past-tense verb было (because it pairs with the quantity word много): В городе было много молодёжи.
Why is it В городе with an -е at the end instead of just В город?
The sentence tells us a location (where the young people are), not a direction of movement (where someone is going). To show a static location with the preposition в (in), the noun город (city) must be in the Prepositional case, which usually adds an -е ending.
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