Breakdown of Ветер зашумел, и дети заплакали.
и
and
дети
children
ветер
wind
заплакать
to start crying
зашуметь
to start making noise
Questions & Answers about Ветер зашумел, и дети заплакали.
Why use зашумел and заплакали instead of just saying начал шуметь and начали плакать?
Adding the prefix за- to these verbs shows that the action started suddenly or spontaneously. While начать (to begin) is grammatically correct, зашумел (suddenly started making noise) and заплакали (burst into tears) sound much more natural for environmental sounds and emotional reactions that happen out of nowhere.
Are зашумел and заплакали perfective or imperfective?
They are perfective. Even though the base verbs шуметь (to make noise) and плакать (to cry) are imperfective, adding this specific за- prefix creates a perfective verb. This is because it focuses on a single, completed event: the exact moment the noise or the crying began.
What are the base verbs here without the за- prefix?
The base verbs are the imperfective шуметь (to make noise) and плакать (to cry). A quick reminder for плакать: it has a consonant mutation when conjugated in the present tense (я плачу, ты плачешь), but the past tense used in our sentence simply builds off the regular infinitive stem.
Why is there a comma before и in this short sentence?
In Russian, you must put a comma before и (and) when it connects two independent clauses. An independent clause is a complete thought with its own subject and verb. Here, the two connected clauses are Ветер зашумел (The wind started making noise) and дети заплакали (the children started crying).
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