Question 1

This lesson is about using заходить (to drop in). Why does this sentence use навещали to mean 'visited' instead?

Accepted Answer

While заходить means to casually stop by or drop in on someone on your way somewhere else, навещать is used for a more intentional visit. It is specifically used when visiting someone who is sick, elderly, or whom you haven't seen in a while. Since he is in the hospital, навещали is the most natural choice.

Question 2

Why does it say в больнице (Prepositional case) instead of в больницу (Accusative case)?

Accepted Answer

In this lesson, you are practicing the Accusative case for destination with verbs of motion (like going into the hospital). However, навещать (to visit) is not a verb of motion. It describes an action happening at a location, answering the question 'where did the visiting take place?'. Because of this, it requires the Prepositional case в больнице.

Question 3

The English translation says 'visited', which sounds like a completed action. Why is the imperfective verb навещали used instead of the perfective навестили?

Accepted Answer

Using the imperfective past tense here strongly implies that the friends visited him regularly or multiple times during his stay. If this were a single, one-time visit, the perfective навестили would have been used.

Question 4

Why is the pronoun его used here, and how would this change if we used the lesson's verb заходить?

Accepted Answer

его is the Accusative case form of он, acting as the direct object of навещали (they visited him). If you swapped the verb to заходили (dropped in), the grammar would change entirely: you would need the preposition к plus the Dative case, making it заходили к нему.

Друзья навещали его в больнице.

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