Learn Hardcore Russian: В свободном обществе люди могут улыбаться, говорить и выбирать, кого любить. - In a free society people can smile, speak, and choose whom to love.

In the sentence В свободном обществе люди могут…, we are talking about what happens within a free society (a general situation), not movement into a free society.

So we use the prepositional case:

свободное общество → prepositional: (в) свободном обществе
(location / context: in a free society)

If you said в свободное общество, it would suggest movement into a free society, as in “to go into a free society,” which is not the meaning here.

Why does свободном end in -ом?

Because свободном is an adjective agreeing with обществе in gender, number, and case:

общество is:
- neuter
- singular
- prepositional case (after в = “in”)
Neuter singular prepositional adjectives normally end in -ом / -ем:
- свободный (nom. masc./neut.) → в свободном обществе
- новый город → в новом городе
- тёплое море → в тёплом море

So свободном is just the regular prepositional singular form of the adjective свободный, matching обществе.

Why is it люди могут instead of something like людям можно?

Both patterns exist in Russian, but they are slightly different:

Люди могут…
- люди is the subject (nominative plural)
- могут is a personal verb “can/are able to”
- Focus: people actively have the freedom / ability to do these things.
Людям можно…
- людям is in the dative case
- можно is an impersonal construction “it is allowed / it is possible”
- Focus: the rules or circumstances allow it.

In a sentence about a free society, speakers usually want to stress people’s freedom and power to act, so люди могут is more natural than людям можно here.

What exactly does могут mean here, and how is it different from умеют?

Могут is the 3rd person plural of мочь (“can, to be able to, to be allowed to”). It can express:

permission: “are allowed to”
possibility: “are able to” (because there are no obstacles)
physical/mental ability: “can”

In this sentence, могут mainly means “are free / are allowed to / have the possibility to”.

Умеют is from уметь, which means “to know how to do something (possess a skill).”

Compare:

Люди могут говорить. – People are free / are able to speak.
Люди умеют говорить. – People know how to speak (they have that skill).

In a political / social context like “in a free society,” it’s about freedom, not skills, so могут is the correct choice.

Why is улыбаться reflexive (with -ся) and what nuance does that add?

The -ся ending marks a reflexive verb, but in many verbs (including улыбаться) it has become just part of the basic dictionary form.

улыбаться means “to smile,” and it is normally always used with -ся.
There is a non‑reflexive verb улыбать, but it is rare and means “to make someone smile,” which is different.

So you don’t say улыбать(ся) vs улыбаться for “to smile”; you just use улыбаться (imperfective) or улыбнуться (perfective). The reflexive ending does not mean “smile to oneself” in any special way here; it’s simply how the verb is formed in modern Russian:

Он любит улыбаться. – He likes to smile.
Она улыбнулась. – She smiled (once / at that moment).

What is the difference between улыбаться and улыбнуться, and why is улыбаться used here?

This is the classic aspect difference:

улыбаться – imperfective: to be smiling, to smile in general, to smile repeatedly/regularly.
улыбнуться – perfective: to smile once, a completed act.

Examples:

Он часто улыбается. – He smiles often.
Он вдруг улыбнулся. – He suddenly smiled (at that moment).

In В свободном обществе люди могут улыбаться…, the idea is that people generally, whenever they want, are free to smile. That’s an ongoing, habitual possibility, so the imperfective улыбаться is appropriate.

If you used улыбнуться, it would sound more like “are able to smile (once / in a given moment),” which doesn’t match the broad, general idea of freedom.

Why is говорить used and not сказать?

Again, this is about aspect and meaning:

говорить – imperfective: to speak, to talk, to be saying something, to do speech in general.
сказать – perfective: to say/tell one specific thing (a single act of saying).

Compare:

Он любит говорить. – He likes to talk / He likes speaking.
Он хочет сказать что-то. – He wants to say something (one message).

In люди могут … говорить, the idea is freedom of speech in general – people can speak, express themselves, talk openly whenever they want. That’s an ongoing, repeated action, so говорить (imperfective) is natural. Сказать would sound too “one-time” for this context.

What is the difference between выбирать and выбрать, and why is выбирать used?

This is also an aspect pair:

выбирать – imperfective: to choose / to be choosing / to choose repeatedly or as a process.
выбрать – perfective: to choose (and finish choosing, one completed act).

Examples:

Ему трудно выбирать. – It’s hard for him to choose (in general / as a process).
Он наконец выбрал книгу. – He finally chose a book.

In могут … выбирать, кого любить, the sentence talks about the right to choose whom to love, in general, throughout their lives, not about making one single choice once. The imperfective выбирать fits this general, ongoing freedom.

If you used выбрать, it would sound more like “they can (once) pick whom to love,” which is a narrower, more one-time action.

Why is it кого любить and not кто любить?

Because кого is the accusative form of кто (“who”), and in Russian the verb любить (“to love”) takes its object in the accusative case:

любить кого? – love whom?
любить что? – love what?

So:

nominative: кто – who (subject)
accusative: кого – whom (object)

In the phrase кого любить (“whom to love”), кого is the direct object of the infinitive любить. Grammatically it’s like:

Я не знаю, кого любить. – I don’t know whom to love.

Using кто любить would be ungrammatical, because you’d be putting the pronoun in the nominative case where the verb needs an object in the accusative.

Why is there a comma before кого любить?

The comma is there because кого любить forms a subordinate clause-like unit (an infinitive clause) introduced by an interrogative word кого.

Structurally, we have:

main part: люди могут … выбирать – people can choose
dependent part: кого любить – whom (to) love

In Russian, when a verb like выбирать, знать, решать, etc., is followed by an infinitive clause introduced by a question word (кто, что, где, когда, почему, как, кого…), that dependent clause is normally separated by a comma:

Он не знает, что сказать. – He doesn’t know what to say.
Мы выбираем, где жить. – We choose where to live.
Они решают, как поступить. – They decide how to act.

So выбирать, кого любить follows the same pattern: выбирать, кого любить → “to choose whom to love,” with a comma.

Why is there a comma after улыбаться but not before и in улыбаться, говорить и выбирать?

This is a list of three homogeneous infinitives (three things that people can do):

улыбаться
говорить
выбирать

In Russian, when you have a list of three or more items and only the last two are joined by и, you:

put commas between the earlier items
do not put a comma before и joining the last two

So:

улыбаться, говорить и выбирать
молоко, хлеб и масло
читать, писать и считать

If you had and between every pair (и улыбаться, и говорить, и выбирать), normally you wouldn’t use commas between them.

Could the word order be different, like Люди в свободном обществе могут… or Люди могут в свободном обществе…?

Yes, Russian word order is relatively flexible, but changes can slightly affect emphasis and naturalness.

В свободном обществе люди могут улыбаться…
– Neutral, puts initial focus on the setting (“In a free society…”), then tells what people can do there.
Люди в свободном обществе могут улыбаться…
– Focus starts with people, then specifies which people (“people in a free society”). Still natural, just a bit different in emphasis.
Люди могут в свободном обществе улыбаться…
– Grammatically possible, but the phrase в свободном обществе feels a bit oddly placed between the subject and verb phrase. It’s not wrong, but the original word order sounds more natural and stylistically smooth.

In general, putting В свободном обществе at the beginning is a common way to frame the whole statement by its social context.

What exactly does общество mean here? Is it “society,” “country,” or something else?

Общество usually corresponds to “society” in English, in the sense of:

the social system
the community of people living together under certain norms and institutions
the way life is organized socially and politically

In в свободном обществе, it suggests:

not just a geographic country (страна)
but the social order: laws, norms, freedoms, attitudes.

So в свободном обществе ≈ “in a free society,” i.e., in a kind of society where people have rights and freedoms, not just “in a free country” in a purely territorial sense.