Breakdown of Он на каждом шагу говорит о работе.
он
he / it (for a masculine noun) / it (for a neuter noun)
работа
work, job
говорить
to speak, to talk
на каждом шагу
at every turn, everywhere
Questions & Answers about Он на каждом шагу говорит о работе.
Why does шаг end in -у here instead of the standard prepositional ending -е?
Шагу is in the Locative (or Second Prepositional) case. A small group of masculine nouns take a stressed -у or -ю ending instead of -е after the prepositions в and на when indicating location. The phrase на каждом шагу is a fixed idiom meaning "at every step" or "at every turn."
Since we are learning the metaphorical instrumental of comparison, could I say he talks "like a machine gun" here without using the word как?
Yes! You can use the instrumental case for the noun machine gun (пулемёт), making it пулемётом. You could say Он пулемётом на каждом шагу говорит о работе to mean he talks about work rapidly and relentlessly. (Note that natives might often pair this specific metaphor with the verb тараторить, meaning to chatter). This expresses the comparison without needing the word как (like/as).
Why is the imperfective verb говорит used here rather than a perfective verb like скажет?
The imperfective aspect is required because the idiom на каждом шагу (at every turn) indicates that the action is repeated and habitual. Perfective verbs are generally used for single, completed actions, which clashes with the idea of doing something constantly.
Could I use the preposition про instead of о in this sentence?
Yes, you absolutely can! You could say Он ... говорит про работу. Notice that про requires the accusative case (работу), whereas о takes the prepositional case (работе). Using про is slightly more conversational, but it means exactly the same thing and is very common in everyday Russian.
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