In Russian, people usually put sentences together in a certain order: Subject-Verb-Object, or SVO for short.

Basic Structure

1. Subject (S): This is the person or thing that is doing something.
2. Verb (V): This is the action that the subject is taking.
3. Object (O): This is the person or thing that the action is directed at.

Example

• Я (S) читаю (V) книгу (O).
  (I read a book.)

Changing the Order for Emphasis

Even though SVO is the usual order, Russian can play around with word placement:

• Object First: Книгу читаю я.
  (It is the book that I read.)

• Verb First: Читаю я книгу.
  (I read the book.) - This puts extra attention on the action.

By learning these different ways to put sentences together, you can show different feelings and ideas.

Try practicing by changing the order of words in a sentence to see how it changes the meaning!