Questions & Answers about В тот день мы отдыхали.
Why does в take the accusative case here instead of the prepositional?
When talking about a specific day or a day of the week, Russian uses в plus the accusative case. Even though it translates to 'on' in English, you only use the prepositional case for months or years (like в том году). Days always take the accusative!
What case is день in this sentence? It looks like the dictionary form.
It is in the accusative case. Because день (day) is a masculine, non-living (inanimate) noun, its accusative form is exactly the same as its dictionary form.
Why is the word for 'that' тот and not этот?
Этот means 'this' (something close), while тот means 'that' (something further away in time or space). Since the sentence is about a specific day in the past, we use тот. It is in the masculine accusative form to match день.
Why is the verb отдыхали imperfective?
The imperfective aspect is used here because resting is a continuous process or a state of being, rather than a single, quick completed action. It translates perfectly to the continuous English past tense 'were resting'.