Learn Hardcore Russian: Любая ошибка помогает нам учиться, если мы не боимся ошибаться. - Any mistake helps us learn if we are not afraid to make mistakes.

Любая ошибка помогает нам учиться
Literally: Any mistake helps us learn.
It emphasizes any one mistake of this type; no matter which mistake it is, it can help.
Каждая ошибка помогает нам учиться
Literally: Each mistake helps us learn.
It treats mistakes as a set and goes through them one by one: every single mistake in that set helps.

In this sentence, любая fits well because the idea is: whatever mistake you make, it can help you learn, without focusing on them as a counted series.

You can say Каждая ошибка помогает нам учиться; it’s grammatically correct and natural. The difference is very subtle, and in many contexts they’re almost interchangeable.

Why is it любая ошибка помогает (singular) and not любые ошибки помогают (plural)? Would Ошибки помогают нам учиться be wrong?

The singular любая ошибка помогает focuses on a typical individual mistake:

Любая ошибка помогает нам учиться =
Any (single) mistake helps us learn.

If you say:

Ошибки помогают нам учиться =
Mistakes help us learn.

This is also correct and natural. It just talks about mistakes as a group in general, not about any particular one.

So:

Singular + любая → “No matter which one you pick, it helps.”
Plural ошибки → “Mistakes as a general category help.”

Both are fine; the original just slightly emphasizes the idea of each individual mistake being useful.

Why is it нам and not нас? What case is нам, and why is it used with помогает?

Нам is the dative case of мы (we).

мы (we – nominative)
нас (us – accusative/genitive)
нам (to us / for us – dative)

The verb помогать / помочь (“to help”) in Russian normally takes the dative case for the person being helped:

Он помогает мне. – He helps me.
Она помогает ему. – She helps him.
Ошибка помогает нам. – A mistake helps us.

So нам is used because in Russian you “help to someone”:

[Кто? что?] Ошибка помогает [кому?] нам.

Why is the verb учиться used here and not учить or изучать? What is the difference?

Russian has several different verbs related to learning / studying:

учиться (reflexive, intransitive)
- Means: to learn, to study (in general), to be a student somewhere.
- Focuses on the process of learning by yourself.
- Often doesn’t need a direct object:
  - Я люблю учиться. – I like learning.
  - Я учусь в школе. – I study / I am a student at school.
учить (non‑reflexive, transitive)
- Means: to teach (someone) or to learn/memorize (something specific).
- Needs a direct object:
  - Я учу детей. – I teach children.
  - Я учу слова. – I am learning/memorizing words.
изучать (non‑reflexive, transitive)
- Means: to study (a subject) in depth, to investigate.
- More formal / systematic:
  - Я изучаю русский язык. – I study Russian (as a subject).

In the sentence:

…помогает нам учиться…

the idea is “helps us to learn (in general)”, not “teaches us something specific” and not “study a subject in depth”. So the natural choice is учиться.

What does the -ся ending in учиться, боимся, ошибаться mean?

The -ся / -сь ending marks a reflexive verb in Russian. It can mean different things depending on the verb, but broadly:

It often means “to do something to oneself / for oneself”.
Or it shows that the verb is intransitive (does not take a direct object).

In this sentence:

учиться (from учить + ся)
- Literally “to teach oneself”.
- Meaning: to learn / to study (for oneself).
бояться (here мы боимся)
- Means: to be afraid (of something).
- Reflexive form; there is no simple non-reflexive боять.
ошибаться
- From ошибка (a mistake) + -ать + ся.
- Means: to make mistakes / to be mistaken / to be wrong.

So -ся here is just part of the verb forms and you must memorize them as reflexive:

учиться – to learn
бояться – to be afraid
ошибаться – to make mistakes

Why is it боимся ошибаться and not something like боимся ошибок? What is the difference between these two?

Compare:

Мы не боимся ошибаться.
Literally: We are not afraid to make mistakes.
Structure = бояться
- infinitive (ошибаться)
- Focuses on the action of making mistakes.
- Means: we are not afraid of the possibility of us making mistakes.
Мы не боимся ошибок.
Literally: We are not afraid of mistakes.
Structure = бояться
- genitive noun (ошибок)
- Focuses on mistakes as things.
- More like: mistakes (as a phenomenon) don’t scare us.

In context:

…если мы не боимся ошибаться fits better because it talks about your psychological attitude toward the act of making mistakes.
…если мы не боимся ошибок is also grammatical and understandable, but the original sounds more natural for this idea.

What aspect is ошибаться? How is it different from ошибиться?

Russian verbs have two aspects: imperfective and perfective.

ошибаться – imperfective
- Means: to be making mistakes, to make mistakes generally, to be mistaken (as a process or repeated action).
- Used for:
  - repeated / habitual actions:
    Я часто ошибаюсь. – I often make mistakes.
  - processes:
    Он, кажется, ошибается. – He seems to be mistaken.
ошибиться – perfective
- Means: to make one mistake (a completed event), to be wrong once.
- Used for:
  - single completed action:
    Я ошибся. – I (have) made a mistake / I was wrong (one time).

In если мы не боимся ошибаться, the imperfective is used because we are talking about:

not being afraid of the general possibility of making mistakes,
multiple or repeated mistakes, not one specific error.

If you said боимся ошибиться, it would mean “afraid of making a mistake (once)”, often in some particular situation.

In если мы не боимся ошибаться, why do we use the infinitive ошибаться after боимся? Is this a standard pattern?

Yes. Russian often uses the pattern:

[Verb of desire / ability / fear / intention] + infinitive

Some common examples:

Я хочу учиться. – I want to study.
Я могу говорить по‑русски. – I can speak Russian.
Мы боимся ошибаться. – We are afraid to make mistakes.
Она любит читать. – She loves to read.

Here:

боимся (we are afraid)
ошибаться (to make mistakes)

So бояться + infinitive simply means “to be afraid to do something.”

Can we change the word order and say: Если мы не боимся ошибаться, любая ошибка помогает нам учиться? Is there any difference?

Yes, that word order is completely correct and natural:

Любая ошибка помогает нам учиться, если мы не боимся ошибаться.
Если мы не боимся ошибаться, любая ошибка помогает нам учиться.

Both mean the same thing. The difference is just in emphasis:

Starting with Любая ошибка… puts a bit more focus on mistakes and their usefulness.
Starting with Если мы не боимся ошибаться… puts more focus on the condition (not being afraid).

Russian word order is relatively flexible, especially with clauses introduced by если (“if”). The comma is still required in both versions.

Why is there a comma before если? Do we always put a comma before если in Russian?

In Russian, если introduces a subordinate clause of condition (an “if‑clause”). The general rule:

When если starts a separate clause inside a complex sentence, you separate the clauses with a comma.

In this sentence:

Main clause: Любая ошибка помогает нам учиться
Subordinate clause: если мы не боимся ошибаться

They are two clauses, so they are separated:

Любая ошибка помогает нам учиться, если мы не боимся ошибаться.

If you reverse the order, you still use a comma:

Если мы не боимся ошибаться, любая ошибка помогает нам учиться.

In practice, если almost always comes with a comma somewhere, because it almost always introduces a clause. Exceptions are rare and more advanced.

Are the words ошибка and ошибаться related? How do nouns and verbs like this usually relate in Russian?

Yes, ошибка and ошибаться are directly related:

ошибка – a mistake (noun)
ошибаться – to make mistakes / to be mistaken (verb)

Many Russian verbs are related to nouns by a root:

игра (a game) → играть (to play)
работа (work) → работать (to work)
ошибка (a mistake) → ошибаться (to make mistakes)

Here the common root is ошиб-.

So you can think:

ошибка – the thing, the mistake.
ошибаться – the process or action of making such mistakes.

How do you pronounce this sentence? Where are the main stresses in each word?

Here is each word with the stressed syllable in CAPS:

ЛюБАя
ошиБКА
поМОгает (colloquially often pronounced поМОгает, though the dictionary stress is помОГАет; in modern speech pomÓgayet / poMOgáyet both appear, but standard is поМОгать/поМОгает → actually standard: помОгать, помОгает; let's present the standard form)
[I will give the standard: помоГАет is actually wrong; correct: поМОГАть? Wait: normative is помогА́ть, помога́ет, stress on last syllable. Let's do that.]
помога́ет → помоГАет
НАМ
учИ́ться → уЧИться
Е́сли → Если
МЫ
боИ́мся → боИмся
ошибА́ться → ошиБА́ться (stress on ба)

So:

ЛюБАя ошиБКА помоГА́ет НАМ уЧИться, Если МЫ боИмся ошиБА́ться.

(You don’t need to pronounce it very slowly in real speech; this is just to show the stress.)