Breakdown of Я люблю фрукты, например яблоки.
яблоко
apple
я
I
любить
to love, to like
фрукт
fruit
например
for example
Questions & Answers about Я люблю фрукты, например яблоки.
I thought we were learning the Prepositional plural (-ах / -ях). Why don't фрукты and яблоки have those endings here?
The Prepositional case is only used after certain prepositions (like в, на, or о). In this sentence, фрукты and яблоки are the direct objects of the verb люблю (I love/like), so they must be in the Accusative case. For inanimate objects, the Accusative plural looks exactly the same as the regular Nominative plural. If you were saying "I read about fruits", you would then use the Prepositional plural: Я читаю о фруктах.
In English, we usually say "I like fruit" in the singular. Why is фрукты plural here?
In Russian, the singular фрукт strictly means one single piece of fruit. When you are talking about fruit in general as a food category, you must use the plural form фрукты.
Why is the plural of яблоко formed as яблоки instead of яблока?
Яблоко (apple) is a neuter noun. Normally, neuter nouns ending in -о change to -а in the plural (like окно becoming окна). However, яблоко is a very common exception. It takes an -и ending in the plural to become яблоки.
Does the word например come from the word for "example"?
Yes! It is simply made of the preposition на (on/for) and the noun пример (example). They merged into a single word when used as the adverb meaning "for example."
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