Breakdown of Этот старик живёт здесь всю жизнь.
здесь
here
этот
this [f: эта, n: это]
жить
to live
жизнь
life
весь
all, the whole, everything, everyone
старик
old man
Questions & Answers about Этот старик живёт здесь всю жизнь.
Why is the present tense word живёт translated as "has lived" in English?
In Russian, if an action started in the past and is still ongoing in the present, you use the present tense. Since the old man still lives there, Russian uses the present tense живёт, while English requires the present perfect continuous "has lived".
Why is the phrase всю жизнь in the accusative case here instead of the prepositional?
When expressing how long an action lasts (duration of time), Russian uses the accusative case without a preposition. Therefore, the nominative вся жизнь changes to the accusative всю жизнь to mean "for his whole life".
Why doesn't the Russian sentence include a word for "his" before "life"?
Russian frequently drops possessive pronouns (like свою for "his own") when the owner is obvious from the context. It is naturally understood that he has lived his own life here, making an explicit pronoun unnecessary.
The current lesson is about special plurals. If we changed this to "these old men," would старик have a special plural like the -анин words?
No. Unlike the nouns in this lesson (such as англичанин) that drop the -ин to form plurals like англичане, старик is a standard masculine noun. Its plural is simply старики, and the phrase becomes эти старики.
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