Breakdown of Вместимость холодильника достигает литров восьмисот пятидесяти.
холодильник
refrigerator
пятьдесят
fifty
восемьсот
eight hundred
литр
liter
достигать
to achieve / to reach (a quantity or level)
вместимость
capacity (holding, volume)
Questions & Answers about Вместимость холодильника достигает литров восьмисот пятидесяти.
Why is 850 written as восьмисот пятидесяти here?
The verb достигать (to reach) requires its object to be in the Genitive case. In Russian, when you decline a compound number, every single word and part changes case. For 800, восемьсот becomes восьмисот (both the "8" and the "100" decline). For 50, пятьдесят becomes пятидесяти.
Why is литров (liters) placed before the numbers?
Reversing the normal word order and placing the noun before the number is a standard way to express approximation in Russian. It translates to "about" or "around" 850 liters. If the capacity were exactly 850, it would be written in the standard order: достигает восьмисот пятидесяти литров.
Wait, does the number 50 (пятидесяти) force литров into the Genitive case here?
No, and this is a crucial rule for oblique (non-Nominative/Accusative) numbers! In the Nominative, numbers 5 and up force the following noun into the Genitive plural. But in oblique cases, the number and the noun simply agree in case. Here, the verb достигает forces the entire phrase into the Genitive case, so both the numbers and литров are independently in the Genitive.
The Genitive of 100 is ста, so why does 800 end in -сот (восьмисот) instead of -ста?
The word сто (100) on its own declines differently than the "-hundred" suffix in numbers 200 through 900. In these larger numbers, the second half of the word declines like a plural noun. So, in the Genitive case, the ending is -сот, which is the Genitive plural form of сто.
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