Question 1

Why is военный used as a noun here, and how does it change for other cases?

Accepted Answer

Военный is a substantivized adjective, which is the focus of this lesson. It means a military man or serviceman. It acts completely like a noun in a sentence, but it declines exactly like a standard masculine adjective. For example, its genitive form is военного and its plural is военные.

Question 2

Why is военный in the nominative case here rather than the instrumental case?

Accepted Answer

In the present tense, when stating someone's profession or identity (where the verb to be is implied), Russian typically uses the nominative case. If this were in the past or future tense, you would often use the instrumental case, like он был военным (he was a military man).

Question 3

Does the word хотя require a specific word order or punctuation?

Accepted Answer

Хотя (although) introduces a subordinate clause. The word order inside the clause is flexible, just like in English. However, Russian punctuation rules strictly require that you always separate the хотя clause from the main clause with a comma, which is why there is a comma before the second он.

Question 4

Why does искусство keep its dictionary ending after the verb любит?

Accepted Answer

The verb любить takes a direct object in the accusative case. However, искусство (art) is an inanimate neuter noun. For all neuter nouns, as well as masculine inanimate nouns, the accusative case looks exactly identical to the nominative dictionary form.

Хотя он военный, он любит искусство.

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