Breakdown of Она делила комнату с сестрой.
сестра
sister
она
she / it (for a feminine noun)
комната
room
делить
to divide, to share
Questions & Answers about Она делила комнату с сестрой.
Why is the imperfective verb делила used here instead of a perfective form like поделила?
The verb делить (to share / to divide) is used in the imperfective aspect here because sharing a room is an ongoing state or habit in the past. If you used a perfective verb like поделила or разделила, it would imply a single completed action, such as physically splitting a room into two halves or dividing up a resource once and for all.
The English translation says "with her sister." Why is there no word for "her" in the Russian sentence?
In Russian, possessive pronouns are usually left out when the owner is obvious from the context, especially when talking about close family members or body parts. You could technically say со своей сестрой (with her own sister), but it sounds redundant here unless you specifically need to emphasize that it wasn't someone else's sister.
Why do we need the preposition с before сестрой?
The preposition с means "with" in the sense of accompaniment (together with) and is followed by the instrumental case, giving us с сестрой. If you dropped the с and just used the instrumental case alone, it would mean the action was done by means of a sister (using the sister as a tool), which obviously doesn't make sense!
Does the verb делить only mean "to share"?
Its core meaning is actually "to divide." Depending on the context, it can mean dividing numbers in math, splitting a physical object into pieces, or—as in this sentence—sharing a space (комнату). We translate it as "shared" because "She divided a room with her sister" sounds unnatural in English.
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