Сделай мне одолжение.

me

Breakdown of Сделай мне одолжение.

• сделать: to make
• одолжение: a favour

Questions & Answers about Сделай мне одолжение.

Why is сделай used here, and what form is it?

Сделай is the imperative singular form of сделать, which is a perfective verb meaning to do / to make in the sense of completing something.

So Сделай мне одолжение literally means something like Do me a favor.

A learner often notices that Russian has both делать and сделать:

• делать = to do, to be doing, to do in general
• сделать = to do and complete

In requests like this, Russian often uses the perfective imperative when asking for a single completed action.

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Why isn’t it делай мне одолжение?

Because делай comes from делать (imperfective), and that usually sounds different in tone.

Compare:

• Сделай мне одолжение = Do me a favor / please do this one thing for me
• Делай... = more like be doing, do it repeatedly, or sometimes a rough command depending on context

For a one-time request, сделай is the natural choice.

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What case is мне, and why is it used?