Я ценю искренних друзей и наши крепкие воспоминания.
I value sincere friends and our strong memories.
Questions & Answers about Я ценю искренних друзей и наши крепкие воспоминания.
Why is the word for 'friends' друзей here?
The word for friend, друг, has an irregular plural. In the Nominative plural, it is друзья. Because friends are the direct object of the verb ценю, the word needs the Accusative case. For animate nouns, the Accusative plural looks exactly like the Genitive plural. For irregular plural nouns ending in -ья, the Genitive plural ending is -ей, making it друзей.
Both friends and memories are direct objects in this sentence. Why does one phrase look like Genitive (искренних друзей) and the other looks like Nominative (наши крепкие воспоминания)?
This is the animacy rule. For plural direct objects in the Accusative case, animate nouns like people and animals take Genitive endings. Inanimate nouns like objects and concepts take Nominative endings. That is why the animate friends become искренних друзей while the inanimate memories stay as наши крепкие воспоминания.
Why does the adjective искренних end in -их instead of -ых?
The base adjective is искренний (sincere), which is a soft-stem adjective. This means its endings use soft vowels. In the plural Genitive/Accusative form, the standard hard ending is -ых, but the soft equivalent required here is -их.
What does крепкие literally mean in this context?