Breakdown of Мне одинаково нравится читать прозу и поэзию.
Questions & Answers about Мне одинаково нравится читать прозу и поэзию.
Russian uses a different structure for liking than English.
- Мне нравится … literally means “To me, it is pleasing …”
- мне – dative case of я (to me)
- нравится – “is pleasing” (3rd person singular)
So the thing that you like is the grammatical subject, and you are in the dative as the experiencer.
- Я нравлюсь … means “I am liked (by someone)”.
- Я нравлюсь ему = “He likes me.” (literally: “I please him”)
So to say “I like X”, you say Мне нравится X, not Я нравлюсь X.
Because the construction with нравиться works like this pattern:
- [Dative person] + [thing/action] + нравится / нравятся
Examples:
- Мне нравится музыка. – Music pleases me / I like music.
- Тебе нравится читать. – Reading pleases you / You like reading.
So in Мне одинаково нравится читать прозу и поэзию, мне is in the dative because you are the one experiencing the liking, not the grammatical subject.
The verb is agreeing not with прозу и поэзию, but with the whole infinitive phrase читать прозу и поэзию.
In this sentence, the subject is effectively the action “to read prose and poetry”, expressed by читать …, and an infinitive phrase in Russian is treated as neuter singular. So the verb takes the 3rd person singular form нравится.
You would use нравятся when the subject is actually a plural noun phrase:
- Мне нравятся романы и рассказы. – I like novels and short stories.
(Here, романы и рассказы is a plural subject.)
Both are possible, but they have slightly different structures and nuances:
Мне одинаково нравится читать прозу и поэзию.
- More neutral, focuses on how things “are pleasing” to you.
- Dative construction (мне) + нравится.
Я одинаково люблю читать прозу и поэзию.
- Slightly more direct/strong: “I love/like to read …”.
- Nominative я
- verb люблю.
In everyday speech, нравится and люблю often overlap in meaning (“like”).
Roughly:
- нравится – “I find it pleasant / I like it”.
- люблю – can be stronger (“I’m into it / I love it”), but also used simply for “like”.
Your original sentence with нравится is completely natural.
Одинаково is an adverb meaning “equally / to the same degree”.
In Мне одинаково нравится читать прозу и поэзию, it modifies нравится, telling us to what degree or in what way the reading of prose and poetry is pleasing to you:
- “It is equally pleasing to me to read prose and poetry.”
- “I equally like reading prose and poetry.”
So it means you do not prefer one over the other.
They are both in the accusative singular, because they are direct objects of the verb читать (“to read”).
- проза (nominative) → прозу (accusative singular, feminine)
- поэзия (nominative) → поэзию (accusative singular, feminine)
Pattern:
- Feminine nouns ending in -а or -я usually change:
- -а → -у (книга → книгу, проза → прозу)
- -я → -ю (поэзия → поэзию)
Since you “read prose” and “read poetry”, both objects of читать are accusative.
You can say it, but the meaning changes slightly:
Мне одинаково нравится читать прозу и поэзию.
Focuses on the activity of reading them.
→ “I equally like reading prose and poetry.”Мне одинаково нравится проза и поэзия.
Focuses more on the genres themselves, as things you like.
→ “I like prose and poetry equally.”
Both are correct; choose the one that matches what you want to emphasize: the reading activity vs the genres as such.
In Russian, for general likes/dislikes and habitual activities, you normally use the imperfective infinitive:
- Мне нравится читать. – I like reading (in general).
- Мне нравится пить чай. – I like drinking tea.
Прочитать is perfective, focusing on a single completed act (“to finish reading”). That would sound strange here because you’re not talking about one completed reading, but about reading prose and poetry as a general habit / activity.
So читать is the natural choice.
Russian word order is flexible, but not all options sound equally natural.
Most natural:
- Мне одинаково нравится читать прозу и поэзию.
Also acceptable:
- Читать прозу и поэзию мне одинаково нравится.
– Puts extra emphasis on the activity “reading prose and poetry”.
Less natural / can sound awkward:
- Мне нравится одинаково читать прозу и поэзию.
– Grammatically possible, but одинаково ends up sounding more like it describes how you read, rather than how much you like each. Native speakers usually keep одинаково close to нравится.
In practice, the original word order is the best and most neutral.
It depends on the grammatical subject, not on how many people like something.
Singular subject → нравится
- Мне нравится этот фильм. – I like this film.
- Ему нравится читать. – He likes reading.
(Infinitive phrase = neuter singular.)
Plural subject → нравятся
- Мне нравятся эти фильмы. – I like these films.
- Ей нравятся романы и рассказы. – She likes novels and short stories.
In Мне одинаково нравится читать прозу и поэзию, the subject is the infinitive phrase читать прозу и поэзию, treated as singular, so нравится is correct.
Stresses (marked with ´):
- мне нра́вится – нра́ is stressed.
- одина́ково – о-ди-на́-ко-во (stress on на́).
- про́зу – про́ is stressed.
- поэ́зию – по-э́-зи-ю (stress on э́).
Putting the stress in the right place is important, especially in нра́вится and одина́ково, because wrong stress can sound very foreign or even confusing.
Yes, you can switch the order:
- Мне одинаково нравится читать поэзию и прозу.
The meaning is the same: you like reading both, equally. The order прозу и поэзию vs поэзию и прозу is just a stylistic choice and doesn’t change the sense of the sentence.