Breakdown of Директор вручает документы студентам.
студент
student (m)
директор
director
документ
document
вручать
to award / to hand over
Questions & Answers about Директор вручает документы студентам.
Since this lesson focuses on tricky plurals, what is the plural of директор? Does it have two forms with different meanings?
The plural is директора (with stress on the final -а). Unlike words from this lesson such as листы (sheets of paper) and листья (leaves), it doesn't have two distinct modern meanings. You might occasionally see директоры in very formal or older texts, but директора is the standard, everyday plural for all contexts.
Why is студентам in the Dative case here?
The verb вручать (to hand over, to present) takes two objects. The thing being handed over takes the Accusative case (документы), and the recipient takes the Dative case (студентам). This structure works exactly like the more common verb давать (to give).
The verb вручает looks related to the word for hand. Is it?
Yes! It comes from the root рука (hand). The prefix в- (in, into) gives the literal sense of putting something directly into someone's hands. The perfective pair is вручить, but the imperfective вручает is used here to describe an ongoing process in the present tense.
How does the nuance change if we swap the objects and say Директор вручает студентам документы?
In Russian, the most important or 'new' information naturally falls at the end of the sentence. The original word order emphasizes who receives the items: it is the students getting them, not the teachers. Swapping the objects to put документы at the end would emphasize what is being handed over: they are receiving documents, not books.
Learn Директор вручает документы студентам 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