Breakdown of У нас одни банковские долги, нет даже десяти рублей.
мы
we
десять
ten
у
at, by
нет
there is no / is not present
рубль
ruble
даже
even
одни
only / alone (pl.)
долг
debt
банковский
bank / banking (adjective)
Questions & Answers about У нас одни банковские долги, нет даже десяти рублей.
Why is the word for "one" (одни) in the plural form here?
When the pronoun один is used to mean "only" or "nothing but", it has to agree in gender, number, and case with the noun it modifies. Since долги (debts) is plural, we use the plural form одни.
Why do we use the form десяти instead of the normal number десять?
The word нет (there is not / we do not have) always forces the following noun or number into the genitive case. The genitive form of the number десять is десяти.
If нет forces the genitive case, why is рублей in the genitive plural instead of just genitive singular?
Numbers from five and up already require the noun to be in the genitive plural (as in десять рублей). When the entire phrase gets pushed into the genitive case because of нет, the number changes to десяти, but the noun stays in the genitive plural.
Why does the second part of the sentence just start with нет? Doesn't it need to say "we do not have"?
The phrase У нас (At us) from the beginning of the sentence applies to both clauses. Russian frequently drops it the second time to avoid repetition, so it literally flows as "At us are only bank debts, there is not even ten rubles."
Learn У нас одни банковские долги, нет даже десяти рублей and more in Russian
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.
- ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
- ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
- ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free