Breakdown of По субботам мы убираемся в квартире.
мы
we
квартира
apartment
суббота
Saturday
убираться
to tidy up, to clean (imperfective)
Questions & Answers about По субботам мы убираемся в квартире.
Why is it по субботам and not just в субботу?
В субботу means 'on Saturday' (a specific, single day). By using по with the dative plural субботам, it means 'on Saturdays' or 'every Saturday'. This tells us the action is a repeating routine.
How does the routine dictate the aspect of the verb убираемся?
Because cleaning on Saturdays is a repeating habit, we must use the Imperfective aspect. Habits always require the Imperfective to focus on the ongoing process or routine. If we were talking about successfully completing the cleaning just once to get a result, we would use a Perfective verb.
Why does убираемся end in -ся if we are cleaning the apartment, not ourselves?
The verb убираться (with the reflexive -ся ending) is often used in everyday speech to mean 'to tidy up' or 'to do the cleaning' in a general sense, rather than doing an action directly to a specific object.
Why do we say в квартире (in the apartment) instead of just квартиру?
Because we used the reflexive verb убираться. Verbs ending in -ся cannot take a direct object in the accusative case. Instead of saying 'we clean the apartment', the Russian phrasing is more like 'we tidy up inside the apartment', using в plus the prepositional case квартире.
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