Breakdown of Поезд отходит ровно через десять секунд.
поезд
train
десять
ten
ровно
exactly
через
in (after a period of time)
отходить
to depart / step away (impf)
секунда
second (unit of time)
Questions & Answers about Поезд отходит ровно через десять секунд.
Why does the sentence use the present tense отходит if the train is leaving in the future?
Just like in English, Russian often uses the present tense for scheduled future events, especially for transport timetables. You will frequently see imperfective verbs like отходить (to depart) or прибывать (to arrive) in the present tense on a train schedule.
Why do we need the preposition через here to say "in ten seconds"?
In Russian, через followed by the Accusative case is used to mean "in" or "after" a specific amount of time. If you left out через and just said десять секунд, it would mean the train spends ten seconds leaving (a duration of the action), rather than leaving ten seconds from now.
What case is десять секунд in after the preposition через?
It is in the Accusative case. For inanimate numbers like десять, the Accusative form looks exactly like the Nominative. Following standard number rules, the noun after десять must be in the Genitive plural, which is why we use секунд.
How does this phrase differ from the clock time format like десять минут первого taught in this lesson?
This sentence is a countdown measuring how much time is left before an event happens, not telling the time on a clock. Because it is a simple quantity of time, we just use the basic number plus the noun (десять секунд). You only use ordinal numbers (like первого) when specifying the exact time of day on a clock.
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