Breakdown of В статье речь идёт о новой болезни.
новый
new
статья
article
болезнь
illness, disease
речь идёт о
it is about, the matter concerns
Questions & Answers about В статье речь идёт о новой болезни.
Why do we use речь идёт о here instead of a literal translation of "is about"?
While you can simply say Статья о новой болезни (The article is about a new disease), the idiom речь идёт о (literally "speech goes about") is widely used in Russian. It sounds slightly more professional or descriptive, similar to saying "The article discusses..." or "The main topic of the article is..."
Why does the sentence start with В статье rather than putting the subject first?
In Russian, it is very common to put the established context or location at the beginning of the sentence and the new or important information at the end. Starting with В статье sets the scene immediately, which flows much more naturally here than starting with the idiom Речь идёт.
Why does болезни end in -и here?
The phrase речь идёт о requires the prepositional case for the topic being discussed because of the preposition о (about). The word болезнь (disease) is a feminine noun ending in a soft sign, which means it belongs to the 3rd declension group, so its prepositional ending is -и. The adjective новой matches it in the feminine prepositional case.
How could we apply this lesson's topic to say "As for the article, it is about a new disease"?
You would say: Что касается статьи, то в ней речь идёт о новой болезни. The phrase что касается always takes the genitive case, changing статья to статьи. Then, we must use в ней (in it) after то to grammatically anchor the phrase back to the article.
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