Breakdown of Без пяти два они читали объявление об отправлении рейса.
они
they
читать
to read
о
about (о, об, обо)
два
two
пять
five
без
without
рейс
flight (scheduled trip or route)
объявление
announcement
отправление
departure (of transport)
Questions & Answers about Без пяти два они читали объявление об отправлении рейса.
Why do we say без пяти два without using the preposition в for "at"?
When expressing "minutes to the hour" using без (literally "without"), you never use the preposition в. The phrase без пяти два works perfectly on its own to mean both "it is five to two" and "at five to two".
Why is пять changed to пяти, but два stays in its normal dictionary form?
The preposition без always requires the genitive case, so the number of minutes (пять) changes to пяти. The upcoming hour (два) stays in the nominative case. You can translate it literally in your head as "without five (minutes), the hour is two."
Why does the sentence use об instead of о before отправлении?
Just like "a" becomes "an" before a vowel in English, the preposition о (about) becomes об when the next word starts with a vowel sound. Since отправлении starts with the vowel "о", we use об to make the phrase flow better when spoken.
Why is рейс (flight) written as рейса at the end of the sentence?
It is in the genitive case because it means "of the flight" (the departure of the flight). In Russian, when one noun belongs to or modifies another like this, the second noun takes the genitive case.
Why use the imperfective verb читали instead of the perfective прочитали?
The sentence describes an action that was actively in progress at a specific moment on the clock (at five to two). Because they were in the middle of reading the announcement rather than focusing on the completed result, the imperfective aspect is required.
Learn Без пяти два они читали объявление об отправлении рейса and more in Russian
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.
- ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
- ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
- ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free