"Мой сосед работал в Петербурге всю осень и всю зиму."

Translation: My neighbour worked in Saint Petersburg all autumn and all winter.

[IvaKnight]

why not "the whole autumn and the whole winter" ?

[toastie70]

Probably for the same reason I gave above.

[Rumata_]

I couldn't find this answer in the forum thread. Who knows else?

[KalenGi]

For seasons you either use:

\1. The whole of autumn

OR

\2. All autumn

[kpagcha]

In what case are всю осень и всю зиму? And why is it used?

[toastie70]

It's Accusative Case. When you are doing something for a period of time, the period of time is normally expressed using this case:

Я провёл всё лето в Испании.
Я весь день занимался спортом.
Я работал всю неделю над этим.

Hope that helps.

[neposklo]

thanks!

[toastie70]

работал represents the continuous past in english too, since the verb is imperfective in this sentence, so as I read it, this sentence can also mean, "My neighbour was working in St. Petersburg all autumn and all winter."

[or.mizrahi1990]

Why it is not всю осенью и всю зиму?

[toastie70]

Because the accusative is required here and осенью is instrumental. In the accusative case feminine nouns that end in a soft sign (ь) do not change in the accusative. You can tell it is accusative in this case because the adjective вся has changed to всю.

I hope that helps.

[andrevieir.a]

What's the difference between всё and всю?? (Might be stupid, sorry)

[toastie70]

In this context the accusative case is required, so всю agrees with the feminine accusative весну (spring), осень (autumn) and зиму (winter), but if we wanted to use the word for summer it would be the neuter всё лето and if we wanted to say all day then it would be the masculine accusative весь день.

Hope that helps

[KalenGi]

It very much does. Спасибо!

[Dejo]

I wrote: "throughout the fall and winter" and it was marked wrong.

[toastie70]

The current array of correct renderings of the sentence may not include your variant. Normally if it conveys the same meaning and you select the "my answer is correct" option, the team will give it due consideration before adding it to that array for future use (or not).
In this case the app was probably expecting the use of 'all' rather than 'throughout '.

Hope that helps.

[sebool112]

How is "entire" more wrong than "all"?