Breakdown of Мой сын дружит с этим мальчиком.
мальчик
boy
мой
my (мой, моя, моё) / mine
этот
this [f: эта, n: это]
сын
son
дружить
to be friends
Questions & Answers about Мой сын дружит с этим мальчиком.
Why does the Russian sentence use the verb дружит instead of translating the noun "friends"?
In English, we express this idea using the verb "to be" plus the plural noun "friends." Russian handles this more directly by using a specific verb: дружить (to be friends). So, the phrase literally functions like "My son 'friends' with..."
Why does мальчик change to мальчиком here?
It is in the instrumental case. The preposition с (meaning "with" in the sense of doing something together) always forces the noun that follows it into the instrumental case. For a standard masculine noun ending in a consonant, you add -ом.
What is the dictionary form of этим, and why does it look like this?
The dictionary form is этот (this - masculine singular). Just like adjectives, demonstrative pronouns like этот must match the noun they describe in gender, number, and case. Since мальчиком is in the masculine instrumental case, этот changes to its masculine instrumental form, этим.
If дружит is the "he/she/it" form, what is the "I" form of this verb?
The "I" form is я дружу. Even though дружить is a regular second-conjugation verb, you must follow a strict Russian spelling rule: you can never write the letter ю after ж. Because of this, the expected -ю ending becomes -у.
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