Breakdown of Его поездка в столицу была только на один день.
он
he / it (for a masculine noun) / it (for a neuter noun)
день
day
только
only
в
in / to (direction)
один
one
быть
to be
столица
capital city
поездка
trip, journey
на
for (a period of time)
Questions & Answers about Его поездка в столицу была только на один день.
Why do we need the preposition на to say 'for one day'?
To express intended duration — how long you plan to stay somewhere or how long a result is meant to last — Russian uses на + the Accusative case. Without на, the sentence would sound like the travel itself took a whole day to complete.
Why is it в столицу (Accusative) instead of в столице (Prepositional) if the verb была doesn't show motion?
The noun поездка (trip) implies motion because it is related to the verb ездить (to go by vehicle). Action nouns that express traveling or moving still require the destination case (в or на + Accusative), so it literally means 'a trip TO the capital'.
Could I say за один день instead of на один день?
No, because за + Accusative is used for the time it takes to complete an action (like 'I packed my bag in one day'). Here, you are talking about the planned length of the stay, which requires на.
Since на takes the Accusative case here, why doesn't один день change its ending?
The word день is an inanimate masculine noun. In Russian, inanimate masculine nouns (and their modifiers, like один) look exactly the same in the Accusative case as they do in the Nominative dictionary form.
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