Breakdown of Эту школу создал мой дедушка.
школа
school
мой
my / mine
этот
this [f: эта, n: это]
дедушка
grandfather
создать
to create (perfective)
Questions & Answers about Эту школу создал мой дедушка.
Why is the word order flipped? It looks like the sentence says This school created my grandfather!
In Russian, word order is flexible, and the subject is determined by its case, not its position. Дедушка is in the nominative case, making it the doer of the action. Школу is in the accusative case, meaning it receives the action. Placing мой дедушка at the end emphasizes exactly who created the school.
Because дедушка ends in -а, shouldn't it use the feminine word моя?
Even though дедушка ends in -а (which is usually a feminine ending), it refers to a male person, so it is grammatically masculine. Because of this, it must take the masculine pronoun мой and the masculine past-tense verb создал.
Why is it эту школу instead of эта школа?
Since the school is the object being created, it needs to be in the accusative case. For feminine nouns ending in -а, the ending changes to -у. This applies to both the noun itself (школа becomes школу) and the word for this (эта becomes эту).
Would it be wrong to say Мой дедушка создал эту школу?
Learn Эту школу создал мой дедушка and more in Russian
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.
- ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
- ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
- ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free