Word
Люди часто называют Пушкина гением.
Meaning
People often call Pushkin a genius.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about Люди часто называют Пушкина гением.
Why is Pushkin's name written as Пушкина here?
It is in the accusative case because he is the direct object of the verb называют (call). Male Russian surnames ending in -ин (like Пушкин) act like normal animate masculine nouns in the accusative, which means they take the same -а ending as the genitive case.
Why is the word for genius (гений) in the instrumental case (гением)?
The verb называть (to call or to name) requires the instrumental case for the label or title being applied. You can think of it as calling someone "by means of" a certain word. So the person being called (Пушкина) is accusative, and what they are called (гением) is instrumental.
How does the noun гений (genius) decline to become гением?
Masculine nouns ending in -ий replace the -й with -ем or -ём in the instrumental case. Because the stress is on the first syllable (ге́ний), the ending is unstressed, so it takes -ем to become гением.
Why do we use the imperfective verb называют instead of its perfective form?
The adverb часто (often) indicates that this is a repeated, habitual action. In Russian, habitual actions always require an imperfective verb.