Breakdown of Мы купили билеты за неделю до поездки.
мы
we
билет
ticket
неделя
week
купить
to buy (perfective)
поездка
trip, journey
до
before, until
за ... до
before (as in "an hour before the flight")
Questions & Answers about Мы купили билеты за неделю до поездки.
How does the за ... до structure translate to 'a week before' in this sentence?
This is a set formula for expressing how much time passed before an event: за + Accusative (amount of time) + до + Genitive (the event). Here, we have за неделю (the amount of time: a week) + до поездки (the event: the trip).
Why is неделя changed to неделю here?
In the за ... до structure, the preposition за requires the time word to be in the Accusative case. Since неделя (week) is a feminine noun, its ending changes to -ю.
What is the dictionary form of поездки and why does it end in -и?
The dictionary form is поездка (trip). The preposition до always requires the Genitive case. Normally, a feminine noun ending in -а changes to -ы in the Genitive, but the Russian spelling rules say we can never write ы after the letter к, so we write и instead.
Why use the perfective verb купили instead of the imperfective покупали?
Buying the tickets is presented as a single, completed action. The perfective aspect (купили) emphasizes that the purchase was successfully finished at that specific point in time, rather than being an ongoing process.
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