Breakdown of Трубу прорвало и затопило всю кухню, так что мы убираем воду.
и
and
вода
water
мы
we
кухня
kitchen
Questions & Answers about Трубу прорвало и затопило всю кухню, так что мы убираем воду.
Why are the verbs прорвало and затопило in the neuter past tense if a pipe (труба, feminine) caused the flood?
These are impersonal constructions, which are often used in Russian for accidents or uncontrollable events. Instead of saying the pipe burst itself, Russian frames it as an unknown force bursting the pipe. Therefore, трубу is in the accusative case (the object), and the verb defaults to the neuter singular прорвало. The same applies to затопило (it flooded).
Why is there a comma before так что, and can I use поэтому instead?
Yes, you could use поэтому (therefore or so) here, but так что specifically emphasizes the factual consequence or result of the first clause. Notice that in Russian, a comma is always required before the conjunction так что to separate the main clause from the subordinate consequence clause.
If the first part of the sentence is impersonal, does the так что clause also have to be impersonal?
No. The так что clause simply states the result of whatever happened in the first clause. Here, the result is an action performed by specific people, so we use a standard personal construction: мы убираем воду (we are cleaning up the water). The two clauses are independent in their grammatical structure.
Why use the imperfective verb убираем here instead of the perfective уберём?
The imperfective убираем is used because the action is currently in progress. The pipe burst (which already happened, so the past tense perfective is used), and as a result, we are currently in the middle of cleaning up the water (present tense, imperfective).