Word
Вы можете добавить сюда щепотку перцу?
Meaning
Can you add a pinch of pepper here?
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Вы можете добавить сюда щепотку перцу?
вы
you (plural or formal)
мочь
to be able to
перец
the pepper
сюда
here, to here
Questions & Answers about Вы можете добавить сюда щепотку перцу?
Why does "pepper" end in -у (перцу) instead of the regular genitive -а (перца)?
This is the partitive genitive, sometimes called the "second genitive." For certain uncountable mass nouns like перец (pepper), чай (tea), or сахар (sugar), Russian often uses the ending -у or -ю when talking about a specific quantity or a part of the whole (like a pinch, a cup, or simply "some"). You could technically use the regular genitive (перца), but перцу is very natural and traditional in this context.
Where did the second "е" from the dictionary form перец go?
The second "е" in перец is a "fleeting vowel." This means it drops out of the word whenever you add a grammatical ending. So, the base перец shrinks to the stem перц-, giving us перцу (or перца in the standard genitive).
Why is щепотка (a pinch) changed to щепотку?
It is the direct object of the verb добавить (to add). Because it is the actual thing being added, it must be in the accusative case, which changes feminine nouns ending in -а to -у.
Why does the sentence use сюда for "here" instead of здесь?