"Вера бежит в школу."
Translation:Vera is running to school.
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hmmm. i'm guessing if this said в школе it would've been 'at school'. weird how в can be 'at' or 'to'.
It depends on the the case that the noun is in. в with prepositional case denotes location (in, at) and в with accusative case denotes direction of movement (to, into). So в школе, which uses the prepositional case, would mean that she is running in or at the school.
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Бе́гать (imperfectum) and побе́гать (perfectum) are abstract verbs, i.e. verbs of multidirectional motion (as opposed to unidirectional) or indirect, or verbs whose action is repeated or in a series (iterative), instead of being a single completed action . Their counterparts, бежа́ть (impf) and побежа́ть (perf), are concrete verbs, i.e. "one-direction-verbs" .
Some examples of the difference can be found here:
So «в школу» means “to school” and «в школе» means “in/at school”? Cool...
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Earlier we had "Девушка бежит на пляж." --to the beach. Now we have "Вера бежит в школу." --to school.
Why is it "на" for one, and "в" for the other?
Russian doesn't have a separate preposition to match the English "to" when talking about the direction of movement. Instead it uses the same one that is used when someone or something is there, while changing the case of the place from prepositional to accusative.
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"The girl is on the beach." - "Девушка на пляже."
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"The girl runs to the beach." - "Девушка бежит на пляж."
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"Vera is in the school." - "Вера в школе."
- "Vera runs to the school." - "Вера бежит в школу."
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Could you also use на + accusative for this particular example? I mean, can sometimes both prepositions give the same translation? (e.g. in Dutch you can say both "op school" and "in school" if you're in a school building)
I know that most often you cannot just swap them, e.g.
я бросаю мяч в коробку: I throw the ball into the box
я бросаю мяч на коробку: I throw the ball on the box
The question arose because the way I understand it now, when you run to the stadium, you'd say: я бегу на стадион.
Whereas running to school uses "в": я бегу в школу.
Since both are buildings I was wondering if "на" and "в" were interchangeable in these sentences, as long as you use accusative to indicate that you are going in that direction. Or should one learn by heart that "школа" uses "в" and "стадион" uses "на" ?
Or should one learn by heart that "школа" uses "в" and "стадион" uses "на" ?
This.
There are very few instances where you can use both "на" and "в". Usually it's either one or the other. And it's not always obvious when is which, though there are some general patterns.
To answer your original question, no, you can't use "на" in this example. If you do, it would mean she runs to the roof of the school (though that would be a pretty clumsy way to express that).
Doesn't "в" mean in? I was thinking that Vera might be literally running while in a school, you know, in the hallway or something :/
That would require the prepositional case. "Вера бежит в школе". The accusative case "в школу" indicates movement towards the school. The preposition doesn't change.
