Breakdown of Они надеются, что забастовка скоро закончится.
они
they
скоро
soon
что
that (conjunction)
надеяться
to hope
забастовка
the strike
закончиться
to end (perfective)
Questions & Answers about Они надеются, что забастовка скоро закончится.
Why do we use the reflexive verb закончится here instead of just закончит?
Because the action is intransitive here: the strike is ending on its own, not ending something else. When a phase verb like to end or to begin does not have a direct object, Russian uses the reflexive forms ending in -ся, like закончиться. If the sentence were They will end the strike, you would use the non-reflexive закончат.
Why is забастовка in the nominative case?
Because it is the subject of the second clause. English uses the same verb for I end the strike and The strike ends, but in Russian, when using the reflexive закончиться (to come to an end), the thing that is ending is the grammatical subject. Therefore, забастовка must be in the nominative case.
What tense is закончится?
It is in the future tense. The verb закончиться is perfective, meaning it focuses on the completion of an action. When you conjugate a perfective verb using present-tense endings, it automatically creates the simple future tense, which is why it translates to will end.
What is the infinitive of надеются, and why does it end in -ся instead of -сь?
The infinitive is надеяться (to hope). For the they form, it takes the -ют ending, followed by the reflexive particle -ся, resulting in надеются. Remember that the reflexive particle is always -ся after consonants (like the т here) and -сь after vowels (like in the I form, надеюсь).
Is the comma before что mandatory?
Yes. Unlike in English, where the comma before that is often omitted, Russian punctuation strictly requires a comma before subordinate conjunctions like что to separate the two main ideas (clauses) of the sentence.
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