Questions & Answers about В лесу нельзя бросать мусор.
What does нельзя mean exactly in this sentence?
Нельзя is an impersonal word that means “one must not / it’s not allowed / you can’t (are not allowed to)”.
In В лесу нельзя бросать мусор, it expresses a general prohibition:
“You must not throw rubbish in the forest / It’s forbidden to throw rubbish in the forest.”
It does not mean “physically impossible”; it’s about rules, norms, or something being unacceptable.
Why is it в лесу and not в лесе?
В лесу uses a special old locative form of the prepositional case.
Some common nouns of place have two prepositional forms:
- в лесе – “in the forest” (neutral, descriptive)
- в лесу – also “in the forest”, but often used for real, physical location, especially in set phrases and everyday speech.
For many locations, Russian prefers the locative form in natural-sounding phrases:
- в лесу – in the forest
- в саду – in the garden
- в шкафу – in the cupboard
- на полу – on the floor
In this sentence, в лесу is the normal, idiomatic choice.
What case is лесу, and what does the ending -у show?