Archives for: September 2010, 20

Дом (часть первая)

September 20th, 2010 by Don

There are three words that native speakers of English often confuse at first in their studies of Russian:

The first one of those is дома, which is an adverb that means “at home.” It never changes its endings.
The second is домой, which is an adverb that means “home” in the sense of “homeward/to home.” It never changes its endings.
The third is дом, which is a noun that means “house” or “building” and occurs in the singular and plural of all six cases.

Today we are focusing on дом, which means “home/building.” As a noun it occurs in all six cases in the singular and plural:

Since it is a noun, it can be used with prepositions:

Такси подъехало к дому в два часа ночи.	The taxi drove up to the building/house at two o'clock in the morning.
В этом доме живут человек пятьсот.	About five hundred people live in this building.
Рядом с этим домом находится почта.	There is a post office next to this building.
У дома находится красивый огород.	There is a beautiful garden right next to this building.

Of course, the noun can also be used without prepositions:

Наш дом — одиннадцатиэтажный.	Our building is eleven stories high.
В Орехове-Борисове столько высотных домов, и они все похожи друг на друга.	In the Orekhovo-Borisovo [region] there are so many tall buildings, and they all look [exactly] like each other.
— Ты видишь тот дом? — Какой? — Жёлтый. — Да, вижу.	“Do you see that building?” “Which one?” “The yellow one.” “Yes, I see it.”
— Какие красивые дома! — Да, красивые. Они все были построены после войны.	“What beautiful buildings!” “Yes, they are beautiful. They were all built after the war.”