Breakdown of Он рассказал мне о своей тёще и близнецах.
и
and
он
he / it (for a masculine noun) / it (for a neuter noun)
я
I
о
about (о, об, обо)
рассказать
to tell (perfective)
свой
one's own
близнец
twin
тёща
mother-in-law (wife's mother)
Questions & Answers about Он рассказал мне о своей тёще и близнецах.
Why do we use своей instead of его for "his" here?
Свой is a reflexive pronoun that always refers back to the subject of the sentence. Since the subject is он (he), своей тёще means his own mother-in-law. If you used его тёще, it would mean he was talking about some other man's mother-in-law!
Since тёща means "mother-in-law", does it have an irregular declension like мать?
No, it declines completely regularly. Even though it conceptually relates to mothers, тёща is a standard feminine noun. After the preposition о, it simply takes the regular prepositional ending -е to become тёще. Only мать (mother) and дочь (daughter) use the special -ер- stem (like о матери).
Why isn't the preposition о repeated before близнецах?
When you have a list of items connected by и (and) that share the same preposition, you usually only need to state the preposition once. The single о puts both тёще and близнецах into the prepositional case. You could say о тёще и о близнецах, but dropping the second о is more natural.
What case is близнецах, and what is its dictionary form?
It is the prepositional plural form of the masculine noun близнец (twin). Because the preposition о (meaning "about") triggers the prepositional case, and he is talking about multiple twins, it takes the standard plural prepositional ending -ах.
Why use the perfective verb рассказал instead of the imperfective рассказывал?
The perfective рассказал focuses on the completed result: he shared the story, and the action of telling is finished. If you used рассказывал, it would shift the focus to the ongoing process ("he was telling me") or imply a repeated action ("he used to tell me").
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