Проект вызвал большой интерес.

Because вызвал is the past tense masculine singular form of the verb вызвать.

In Russian past tense, the verb usually agrees with the subject in gender and number:

• он / masculine noun → вызвал
• она / feminine noun → вызвала
• оно / neuter noun → вызвало
• они / plural → вызвали

Here the subject is проект, which is a masculine singular noun, so the verb is вызвал.

Because проект is grammatically masculine, not neuter.

A lot of English speakers expect nouns ending in a consonant to be hard to classify at first, but in Russian, a noun like проект is typically masculine. Since the subject is masculine singular, the past tense verb must also be masculine singular:

• проект вызвал
• not проект вызвало

Because интерес is the direct object, and in this sentence it is masculine singular inanimate.

For masculine inanimate nouns, the accusative singular looks the same as the nominative singular. So:

• nominative: интерес
• accusative: интерес

That is why you do not see a different ending here.

Because большой must agree with интерес in gender, number, and case.

Here интерес is:

• masculine
• singular
• accusative

And because it is inanimate, masculine accusative has the same form as masculine nominative. So the adjective also takes the form that looks like nominative masculine singular:

• большой интерес

If the noun were in a different case, the adjective would change too. For example:

• без большого интереса = without great interest

There, интереса is genitive, so большого is genitive too.

Yes. Вызвать is related to звать, but in this sentence it means something like to cause, to provoke, or to generate.

So вызвать интерес is a very common Russian expression meaning:

• to arouse interest
• to cause interest
• to generate interest

This is a good example of how a verb’s meaning can shift when a prefix is added. You do not want to translate it too literally from the root every time.

Because вызвать is perfective, while вызывать is imperfective.

Russian verbs often come in aspect pairs:

• вызывать = imperfective
• вызвать = perfective

In this sentence, the speaker is talking about a completed event/result: the project did cause interest. That makes the perfective verb natural here:

• Проект вызвал большой интерес.

If you were describing a repeated action, a process, or general ability, the imperfective might be used in another context.

Because Russian has no articles like English a/an or the.

So Проект вызвал большой интерес can correspond to English sentences such as:

• The project caused great interest
• A project caused great interest
• The project aroused a lot of interest

Which one is meant depends on context.

Russian usually relies on:

• context
• word order
• stress/emphasis
• shared knowledge

instead of articles.

Yes, it could be different. Russian word order is more flexible than English because case endings show grammatical roles.

The neutral, straightforward order here is:

• Проект = subject
• вызвал = verb
• большой интерес = object

So this sentence sounds natural and unmarked.

Other orders are possible, but they change emphasis. For example:

• Большой интерес вызвал проект.
  This puts more focus on great interest or sounds more stylistically marked.

For learners, the given order is the safest basic pattern.

Literally, yes, but idiomatically it means great interest, strong interest, or a lot of interest.

Russian often uses большой in places where English prefers words like:

• great
• strong
• considerable
• a lot of

So большой интерес is a very normal collocation and does not sound strange in Russian.

The stress is:

• прое́кт
• вы́звал
• большо́й
• интере́с

A rough pronunciation guide:

• прое́кт → pro-YEKT
• вы́звал → VIZ-val
• большо́й → bal-SHOY
• интере́с → een-tye-RYES

A few useful notes:

• In проект, the е is pronounced like ye after the preceding sound.
• Unstressed о often sounds closer to a.
• Russian stress is important and must usually be learned word by word.

Not directly. Russian and English package this idea differently.

In Russian, вызвать интерес is a set phrase meaning to arouse/cause interest. English often prefers:

• caused great interest
• aroused a lot of interest
• generated a lot of interest

You might also say interested many people in English, but that is a different structure. In Russian, that would normally be phrased differently too.

So it is best to learn вызвать интерес as a natural expression rather than translating word by word.

It is a simple subject + verb + direct object sentence:

• Проект = subject, nominative singular
• вызвал = past tense verb, masculine singular
• большой интерес = direct object, accusative singular

This is a very useful model for Russian:

• [Noun in nominative] + [past tense verb agreeing with subject] + [object in accusative]

So the sentence is grammatically simple, even though some details like aspect and case may be new to learners.