Мой брат получил мамину квартиру в наследство.
My brother received mom's apartment as an inheritance.
Breakdown of Мой брат получил мамину квартиру в наследство.
брат
brother
мой
my / mine
квартира
apartment
в
in / to (direction)
получить
to receive (perfective)
мамин
mom's
наследство
inheritance
Questions & Answers about Мой брат получил мамину квартиру в наследство.
Why is it мамину and not маминую?
Possessive adjectives like мамин (mom's) use a mixed declension. In the feminine accusative case, they take the short ending -у, just like a feminine noun (for example, маму or квартиру). They do not take the standard full adjective ending -ую.
Could I say квартиру мамы instead of мамину квартиру?
Yes, absolutely! квартиру мамы (apartment of mom) means the exact same thing and is very common. However, Russian often prefers these -ин possessive adjectives for close family members like мама, папа, or бабушка in everyday spoken language.
Why do we use в наследство here instead of just a noun to say 'as an inheritance'?
In Russian, the standard way to express receiving, giving, or leaving something 'as an inheritance' is the preposition в plus the accusative case (в наследство). You can think of it literally as the apartment transitioning 'into an inheritance'.
Why use the perfective verb получил instead of the imperfective получал?
The perfective verb получил focuses on the completed result: the one-time event of him getting the apartment. If you used the imperfective получал, it would mean he was in the drawn-out process of receiving it, or that he received inheritances on a regular basis!
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