Word
Через час дельфин будет плыть на юг.
Meaning
In an hour the dolphin will be swimming south.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Через час дельфин будет плыть на юг.
на
on, at / by (transport) / to (a place) / to (in answer to)
час
hour
быть
to be
юг
south
Questions & Answers about Через час дельфин будет плыть на юг.
Why do we use плыть instead of плавать here?
Плыть is the unidirectional verb of motion for swimming. We use it here because the dolphin is heading in one specific direction (на юг) at a specific continuous moment in time (in an hour). If it were swimming around aimlessly, we would use the multidirectional verb плавать.
Why is the future tense formed with будет плыть rather than a single verb?
Because this is an ongoing action in the future ("will be swimming"), we need the imperfective future tense. In Russian, the imperfective future is always a compound tense: a conjugated form of быть (here, будет) plus the imperfective infinitive (плыть). A perfective verb (like поплыть) would form a single-word future, but that would mean "will set off swimming".
Doesn't через usually mean "through" or "across"? Why does it mean "in" here?
You are right that for physical space, через means "through" or "across" (like walking across a park). However, when talking about time, через followed by the accusative case (like час) translates to "in" or "after" a certain amount of time. So, через час means "in an hour".
Why do we say на юг for "south" instead of using в?