Word
Компания существовала с две тысячи четвёртого до две тысячи двенадцатого года, а теперь нам негде работать.
Meaning
The company existed from 2004 to 2012, and now we have nowhere to work.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Компания существовала с две тысячи четвёртого до две тысячи двенадцатого года, а теперь нам негде работать.
а
and (contrastive)
мы
we
работать
to work
два
two
Questions & Answers about Компания существовала с две тысячи четвёртого до две тысячи двенадцатого года, а теперь нам негде работать.
Why do we say две тысячи четвёртого instead of changing the whole number into the genitive case?
When saying a year in Russian, only the last word (the ordinal number) changes its case. The thousands and hundreds stay exactly the same. So, две тысячи remains in the nominative, but четвёртый becomes the genitive четвёртого after the preposition с (from).
Why is the word года (year) only used once at the very end of the time span?
When you give a span of years connected by с (from) and до (to), you don't need to repeat the word for 'year' after the first number. You just put года in the genitive case after the final year.
Literally, how does нам негде работать mean 'we have nowhere to work'?
This is a common Russian impersonal structure using the dative case. It literally translates to 'to us (нам) there is nowhere (негде) to work (работать)'. You use негде plus an infinitive verb when there is an absolute lack of a place to do an action.
Why is существовала (existed) imperfective here, even though the company's existence is completely finished?
Even though the action is over, the sentence focuses on the continuous duration of the company being open. Verbs denoting continuous states, like existing, living, or working, typically use the imperfective aspect when describing a block of time in the past.