Questions & Answers about Мне непонятно это правило.
Why is it мне and not я?
Мне is the dative form of я (“I”).
Russian very often uses the dative case to show the person who experiences a state:
- Мне холодно. – I am cold. (literally: To me it is cold.)
- Мне скучно. – I am bored. (literally: To me it is boring.)
Similarly:
- Мне непонятно это правило. – I don’t understand this rule. / This rule is not clear to me.
(literally: To me this rule is not-understandable.)
So Russian says “To me it is unclear,” using мне (dative), instead of “I” as a grammatical subject.
What exactly is непонятно? Is it an adjective, an adverb, or something else?
Formally it comes from the adjective непонятный (“unclear, not understandable”), but in this sentence непонятно is used as a predicative (a special short form used as the main part of the predicate).
Dictionaries usually label such words as “категория состояния” (category of state) or “predicative adverbs”. You meet them a lot in impersonal sentences:
- Мне понятно. – It is clear to me.
- Ему трудно. – It is hard for him.
- Нам интересно. – It is interesting to us.
So in Мне непонятно это правило, непонятно is the word that says what the situation is (it is “unclear / not understandable”).
Why is in the neuter form?