Breakdown of Она постоянно передумывает: то хочет пойти в парк, то в кино.
парк
park
она
she / it (for a feminine noun)
хотеть
to want
в
in / to (direction)
кино
cinema
пойти
to go (perfective, on foot) / to start (of rain, snow)
постоянно
constantly
то ..., то ...
now ... now ... (alternating actions)
передумывать
to change one's mind
Questions & Answers about Она постоянно передумывает: то хочет пойти в парк, то в кино.
How does the то ..., то ... structure work in this sentence?
The conjunction то ..., то ... shows alternating actions or states (first one thing, then another). Here, it connects her changing desires: то (first she) хочет пойти в парк, то (then she wants to go) в кино. Notice that Russian drops the repeated words хочет пойти in the second half to avoid redundancy and sound more natural.
Why does the verb передумывает mean 'changes her mind'?
The root comes from думать (to think). The prefix пере- often adds the meaning of doing something over again or differently, similar to the English prefix 're-'. So, передумывать literally means 'to re-think' or change one's mind.
Why is передумывает imperfective, but пойти is perfective?
передумывает is imperfective because the word постоянно (constantly) shows this is a repeated, ongoing habit. However, пойти is perfective because she wants to complete a single, specific trip to the park or cinema each time she makes a new plan.
Why are в парк and в кино in the accusative case here?
The verb пойти (to go) indicates motion towards a destination. When expressing motion to a place, the preposition в is followed by the accusative case. Парк and кино look exactly like their dictionary forms because парк is an inanimate masculine noun and кино is a borrowed foreign word that never changes its ending.
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