Breakdown of Если кто‑нибудь спросит про билеты, дай ему мой номер.
Questions & Answers about Если кто‑нибудь спросит про билеты, дай ему мой номер.
Russian and English handle time in if-clauses differently.
English often uses the present for future possibilities:
If anyone asks about the tickets...Russian normally uses the future for a future event in an если‑clause, especially with a perfective verb:
- Если кто‑нибудь спросит про билеты… – literally: If anyone will ask about the tickets…
Using present спрашивает here would sound like you are describing a regular, ongoing situation (e.g. If anyone is in the habit of asking about tickets, then…), not a one‑time future possibility. So спросит (perfective future) is the natural choice.
The difference is aspect:
- спросит – perfective, one complete act: asks / will ask (once)
- будет спрашивать – future of the imperfective: will be asking / will keep asking
In this sentence we mean a single act: if someone happens to ask about the tickets. That’s why спросит is used.
If you said:
- Если кто‑нибудь будет спрашивать про билеты…
…it would sound more like If someone is going to be asking / keeps asking about the tickets…, focusing on the process or repeated action. That slightly changes the nuance.
Both mean some kind of “someone / anyone”, but they are used differently:
кто‑нибудь
- Often used in questions, conditions, and contexts of uncertainty or possibility.
- Has the sense of “anyone at all”.
- Very natural after если in this sentence.
кто‑то
- More like “someone”, usually a specific but unknown person in the speaker’s mind.
- Common in statements:
- Кто‑то звонит. – Someone is calling.
In Если кто‑нибудь спросит про билеты…, кто‑нибудь fits better because we mean any person, whoever it might be. Если кто‑то спросит… is possible, but subtly sounds more like “if some particular person (not specified) asks…”.
Grammatically, yes:
- Если кто‑либо спросит про билеты…
However, кто‑либо is more formal / bookish, and often appears in legal, official, or written language. In everyday speech, кто‑нибудь is much more natural here.
So:
- Casual / neutral speech: кто‑нибудь
- Formal writing, rules, instructions: sometimes кто‑либо
Both essentially mean “about the tickets”, but:
- про takes the accusative:
- про билеты (accusative plural)
- о takes the prepositional:
- о билетах (prepositional plural)
Nuance:
- про is more colloquial / conversational and slightly more informal.
- о is more neutral and can sound a bit more formal or bookish in some contexts.
In this sentence, both are possible:
- Если кто‑нибудь спросит про билеты… – perfectly natural, everyday speech.
- Если кто‑нибудь спросит о билетах… – also correct, just a bit more neutral.
The choice of про here simply makes the sentence sound like ordinary spoken Russian.
In Russian, when a person’s gender is unknown or irrelevant, it is very common to default to masculine singular for pronouns:
- кто‑нибудь – grammatically masculine by default.
- So the dative pronoun becomes ему (to him).
This does not imply that the person must be male. It just follows the grammatical convention that masculine is the default for an indefinite person.
If you specifically wanted to refer to a woman, you would use если какая‑нибудь женщина… and then ей. But with кто‑нибудь, ему is normal.
билеты is in the accusative plural:
- Reason: it is the object of the preposition про, which governs the accusative.
- For inanimate masculine nouns, the accusative plural form looks the same as nominative plural:
- Nominative plural: билеты
- Accusative plural: билеты
мой номер is in the accusative singular:
- It is the direct object of the verb дай (give).
- For inanimate masculine singular nouns, the accusative is identical to nominative:
- Nominative: мой номер
- Accusative: мой номер
So both look like nominative forms, but their function in the sentence tells you they are actually in the accusative.
Russian punctuation rules require a comma between a main clause and a subordinate clause, including conditional clauses with если.
Structure here:
- Subordinate (conditional) clause: Если кто‑нибудь спросит про билеты
- Main clause: дай ему мой номер
Whenever you have если …, (then) …, you separate the clauses with a comma:
- Если будет дождь, мы останемся дома.
- Если кто‑нибудь спросит про билеты, дай ему мой номер.
No. You need a preposition such as про, о, or насчёт here.
In Russian, спросить usually needs either:
- A direct question word / clause:
- спросить его, когда он придёт – ask him when he will come
- Or a prepositional phrase when talking about a topic:
- спросить про билеты / о билетах / насчёт билетов – ask about the tickets
спросить билеты by itself is incorrect in this meaning. Without a preposition, it sounds like you are asking the tickets themselves, which makes no sense.
Yes, Russian allows fairly flexible word order, especially for emphasis. All of these are possible and grammatical:
- Если кто‑нибудь спросит про билеты, дай ему мой номер. – neutral, standard.
- Если про билеты кто‑нибудь спросит, дай ему мой номер. – puts slight emphasis on про билеты (about the tickets).
- Если кто‑нибудь про билеты спросит, дай ему мой номер. – a bit more conversational, focusing on the topic (tickets) after the person is mentioned.
The meaning stays the same; only focus/emphasis changes slightly.
Both verbs can correspond to English “ask”, but they are used differently:
спросить (про что‑то / о чём‑то) – to ask about something, request information:
- спросить про билеты – ask about the tickets (e.g. price, availability, details).
просить (что‑то / о чём‑то) – to ask for something, request that you be given something:
- попросить билеты – ask for the tickets (ask someone to give/sell tickets to you).
In your sentence, we mean ask about the tickets (for information), not ask for tickets. That’s why спросит про билеты is correct here, not попросит билеты.