Learn Hardcore Russian: В свободном мире хорошие законы помогают людям жить спокойно. - In a free world, good laws help people live peacefully.

в свободном мире – prepositional case (где? where?) = in a free world
в свободный мир – accusative case (куда? where to?) = into the free world

In this sentence the idea is “in a free world” (static location), so Russian uses the prepositional case: в + свободном мире.
If you were talking about moving into a free world, then you would say в свободный мир.

Why does свободный change to свободном here?

Свободный is a masculine adjective in its dictionary (nominative singular) form.

In в свободном мире, the adjective has to agree with мир in:

gender: masculine
number: singular
case: prepositional

Masculine (and neuter) adjectives in the prepositional singular usually end in -ом:

новый дом → в новом доме (in the new house)
русский язык → о русском языке (about the Russian language)
свободный мир → в свободном мире (in a free world)

So свободный becomes свободном because of the prepositional case.

Why is мир in the form мире?

Мир (world, peace) is a masculine noun. In the prepositional singular, most masculine nouns take the ending -е:

мир → в мире (in the world)
год → в году (exception)
лес → в лесу (exception)

So в мире is “in the world”, and the adjective must match that case and gender: в свободном мире.

How is the word order working in В свободном мире хорошие законы помогают людям жить спокойно? Can I change it?

Russian word order is more flexible than English, but it still follows some tendencies.

Neutral, clear order here:

В свободном мире – setting / place
хорошие законы – subject
помогают – verb
людям – indirect object
жить спокойно – infinitive phrase (what they help them do)

So: In a free world, good laws help people live peacefully.

You can change the order for emphasis, for example:

Хорошие законы в свободном мире помогают людям жить спокойно.
(Slight extra emphasis on “good laws”.)
Хорошие законы помогают людям в свободном мире жить спокойно.
(Now “in a free world” is attached more to “people living peacefully”.)

However, the original word order sounds very natural and neutral. Radical rearrangements are possible but can sound poetic, marked, or confusing for learners.

Why is it хорошие законы and not хороших законов?

Хорошие законы is the subject of the sentence:

кто? что? помогают? – хорошие законы

Subjects are in the nominative case, and хорошие законы is nominative plural:

хороший закон (singular) → хорошие законы (plural, nominative)

Хороших законов would be genitive plural and would not fit as the subject here. You might see хороших законов in other roles, for example:

нет хороших законов – there are no good laws
у нас мало хороших законов – we have few good laws

Why is помогают used, and what form is it?

Помогают is:

verb: помогать (to help) – imperfective
person: 3rd
number: plural
tense: present

So они помогают = they help / they are helping.

It agrees with хорошие законы (they):

хорошие законы помогают – good laws help

If you used the perfective помочь in the future, it would be:

хорошие законы помогут людям жить спокойно – good laws will help people live peacefully.

Why is людям used and not люди or людей?

Людям is the dative plural of люди (people).

The verb помогать (to help) takes the dative case for the person/thing you are helping:

помогать кому? чему? – to help whom? what?

Examples:

помогать другу → помогать другу (dative singular)
помогать людям → помогать людям (dative plural)

So:

помогают людям = (they) help people.

Люди is nominative plural (subject form), and людей is genitive plural; neither is correct after помогать.

Why is it помогают людям жить, not помогают людям в жизни or something with a noun?

Russian often uses a verb in the infinitive to express “help someone to do something”:

помогать кому? делать что?
→ помогать людям жить спокойно
= help people (to) live peacefully

So the pattern is:

помогать + dative (кому?) + infinitive (делать что?)

Using a noun is possible but slightly different:

помогают людям в жизни – help people in (their) life
помогают людям в повседневной жизни – help people in everyday life

Those are also correct, but they focus on “life” as a sphere.
Помогают людям жить спокойно emphasizes the process/state of living itself.

Why is жить in the infinitive and not живут or another conjugated form?

Because жить here depends on помогают and answers “help to do what?”:

помогают (что делать?) жить

In this construction:

main verb is помогают (they help)
жить is an infinitive complement (to live)

If you used живут, you would be making it a separate predicate:

В свободном мире люди живут спокойно. – In a free world, people live peacefully.

That’s a different sentence structure. Our sentence is:

хорошие законы помогают людям жить спокойно
good laws help people live peacefully.

Why is спокойно used, not спокойный or спокойная жизнь?

Спокойно is an adverb, describing how people live:

жить как? – жить спокойно – to live calmly/peacefully

Adjectives (спокойный, спокойная) describe nouns, not verbs:

спокойная жизнь – a calm / peaceful life
спокойный человек – a calm person

Here we need to modify the verb жить, so Russian uses the adverb спокойно.

You could say:

жить спокойной жизнью – live a calm life

That’s also correct but a bit more concrete and less general-sounding than жить спокойно.

Does спокойно mean “calmly” or “peacefully” here?

Спокойно covers both ideas in Russian:

calm, without anxiety, stress, fear
peaceful, without conflict or danger

In this sentence, given законы and свободный мир, спокойно is best translated as peacefully, but the nuance includes calmly, safely, without fear or disturbance.

So depending on context, жить спокойно can be:

live calmly
live peacefully
live in peace / without worry

How would you pronounce the whole sentence, and where are the main stresses?

Phonetic-style transcription with stressed syllables in CAPS (approximate):

В своБОдном МИре хоРОшие заКОны помоГАют люДЯМ жить споКОЙно.

Word by word:

в – [v]
свободном – [svɐˈbodnəm] (stress on бо)
мире – [ˈmʲirʲɪ] (stress on ми)
хорошие – [xɐˈroʂɨjɪ] (stress on ро)
законы – [zɐˈkonɨ] (stress on ко)
помогают – [pəmɐˈɡajʊt] (stress on га)
людям – [ˈlʲʉdʲəm] (stress on лю)
жить – [ʐɨtʲ]
спокойно – [spɐˈkoj(r)nə] (stress on кой; final -но is very light)

The main intonation typically rises slightly through законы and falls gradually after помогают, with a final fall on спокойно.

Why doesn’t Russian use an article here, like “a free world” or “the free world”?

Russian has no articles (no a, an, the). Definiteness/indefiniteness is shown by context, word order, and sometimes extra words (e.g. этот, один).

So в свободном мире can mean:

in a free world
in the free world

The most natural English translation depends on context and what sounds idiomatic in English. Here, both:

In a free world, good laws help people live peacefully.
In the free world, good laws help people live peacefully.

are possible; the Russian sentence itself doesn’t mark this difference explicitly.