Questions & Answers about Здесь двести человек.
Why does the word for 'two hundred' look like one word, двести, instead of two?
In Russian, numbers in the hundreds are written as a single combined word. The word двести comes from fusing два (two) and an old form of the word for a hundred. Similarly, 300 is триста and 500 is пятьсот.
Why do we use человек here? Isn't the plural word for people люди?
You are right that люди is the general plural word for 'people'. However, there is a special rule for counting people. After numbers that require the genitive plural case (like 5, 20, 100, and 200), we must use a special genitive plural form of человек instead of using людей.
If 200 requires the genitive plural case, why does человек look exactly like the singular word for 'person'?
This is a tricky coincidence in Russian! The basic dictionary form (nominative singular) is человек ('one person'). But its genitive plural form happens to be exactly the same: человек. Since the number 200 requires the genitive plural, we use this form.
How does здесь translate to 'there are ... here'? Where is the verb?
In the Russian present tense, the verb 'to be' (are) is almost always dropped. To express 'there is' or 'there are' in a specific place, you simply put the location first (здесь = here), followed directly by the thing or people located there.
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