Thread: Confused!

привет! I'm having real trouble translating the following phrase.

Принимал экзамены мой старый друг.

For me it doesn't seem to make sense. I took exams with my old friend?

It means roughly ‘My old friend examined me’.

For me it doesn't seem to make sense. I took exams with my old friend?

Where did you see "I", "take" and "with"?

Принимал экзамены мой старый друг. = My old friend was conducting an examination.

1) The context implies that the 'old friend' is a teacher or tutor.
2) Word order in Russian is loose, which differs it from English where the word order is strict.

Word order in Russian is sensitive, it shows the main idea of the sentence.
Lets see at this variant:

Принимал экзамены мой старый друг.

This means that text before already tell us about exams, reader know that there are(were) some exams. And, who did conduct it? My old friend! That is main idea of sentence.

- Кто принимал экзамены?
- Принимал экзамены мой старый друг.

Lets see another variant:
Мой старый друг принимал экзамены.
That means that text before tell us about old friend. And, what did he do? He conduct the exams, that what he did.

- Что вчера делал мой старый друг?
- Мой старый друг принимал экзамены.