Question 1

Our current lesson is about verbs taking the Instrumental case, like служить. Why isn't the Instrumental case used here?

Accepted Answer

You are right that служить often takes the Instrumental case when it means "to serve as a certain profession" (for example, он служил офицером - he served as an officer). However, in this exact sentence, we are stating where he served rather than what he served as, so we use в plus the Prepositional case (в полиции).

Question 2

Why is "for two years" just два года without a Russian word for "for"?

Accepted Answer

When talking about how long an action lasted, Russian simply uses the Accusative case of the time phrase with no preposition at all. Using a word like для or за here is a very common trap for English speakers! Because we have the number два, the noun год is forced into the genitive singular form, becoming года.

Question 3

Since the two years are over and the action is finished, why use the imperfective verb служил?

Accepted Answer

In Russian, whenever you state the exact duration of an action in the past (using phrases like два года), you generally must use the imperfective aspect. Even though his service is completely finished, the imperfective highlights the ongoing process of him serving throughout those two years.

Question 4

Why does в полиции end in -ии instead of the usual Prepositional case ending -е?

Accepted Answer

The word for police, полиция, ends in -ия. Feminine nouns ending in -ия are a special exception in Russian grammar. Instead of taking the standard -е ending in the Prepositional case to show location, they always take -ии.

Он служил в полиции два года.

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