Learn Hardcore Russian: Навигатор помогает мне найти нужную улицу. - The navigator helps me find the right street.

The verb помогать (“to help”) requires the person you are helping to be in the dative case (кому?). Мне is the dative form of я, so it answers “help whom?”

Why is найти in the infinitive form instead of a finite verb?

In Russian, after verbs like помогать you use a bare infinitive to express the action you help with. There’s no extra particle (like English “to”); the pattern is simply помогать + кому + INF.

What case is улицу in and why?

Улицу is in the accusative case as the direct object of найти (“to find what?”). For feminine nouns ending in -а, the accusative singular ending changes -а to -у, so улица → улицу.

Why is the adjective нужную used here, and why does it look like that?

Нужную comes from the adjective нужный (“needed”). It must agree with улицу in gender (feminine), number (singular), and case (accusative). The feminine singular accusative ending is -ую, so нужная → нужную.

Why is the perfective verb найти used instead of the imperfective находить?

Using the perfective найти emphasizes the successful completion of the action (“to find” once). The imperfective находить would imply a repeated or ongoing process (“to be finding”), which isn’t appropriate for a one-time search.

Is the word order fixed as Навигатор помогает мне найти нужную улицу, or can it change?

Word order in Russian is relatively flexible. You can say Навигатор мне помогает найти нужную улицу or Навигатор помогает найти мне нужную улицу without changing the basic meaning. The neutral order (S-V-IO-INF-DO) is most common.

Can мне ever be omitted if the context makes it clear who is being helped?

Technically you could drop мне if it’s obvious from context, but it’s generally kept for clarity. Omitting it might make the sentence sound incomplete or too vague.