Learn Hardcore Russian: Чтобы говорить по-русски свободно, нужно прилагать усилия каждый день. - In order to speak Russian fluently, one needs to make efforts every day.

Чтобы + infinitive: Чтобы говорить по-русски свободно – In order to speak Russian fluently
Main clause: нужно прилагать усилия каждый день – it is necessary to make efforts every day

Key points:

Чтобы + infinitive is used when the doer (subject) is the same in both parts, and the sentence is impersonal or generic.
It’s one word: чтобы, not что бы (which is a different construction).

You can often flip the order:

Нужно прилагать усилия каждый день, чтобы говорить по-русски свободно.
You need to make efforts every day in order to speak Russian fluently.

Why are говорить and прилагать in the infinitive instead of being conjugated like "я говорю", "я прилагаю"?

Because this is an impersonal, general statement about what one needs to do; it’s not about I/you/he specifically.

Two things are happening:

Чтобы + infinitive:
- Чтобы говорить… = In order to speak…
  This is a standard purpose construction.
Нужно + infinitive:
- нужно прилагать усилия = it is necessary to make efforts / you need to make efforts
  Russian often uses нужно/надо + infinitive instead of an explicit subject like “you”.

So instead of:

You need to make efforts every day…
Russian literally says:
It is necessary to make efforts every day… (with infinitives).

Who is the subject of нужно прилагать усилия? Is it "I", "you", or something else?

Grammatically, there is no explicit subject. This is an impersonal construction:

нужно = it is necessary (impersonal)
прилагать усилия = to make efforts

Semantically, it usually means “you / one / we (in general)” need to do this. English chooses a pronoun (“you”), but Russian leaves it implied.

If you want to make the “person” explicit, you can add a dative pronoun:

Тебе нужно прилагать усилия каждый день. – You (sg.) need to make efforts every day.
Вам нужно прилагать усилия каждый день. – You (pl./formal) need to make efforts every day.

What’s the difference between нужно, надо, and должен here?

All relate to necessity/obligation, but with nuances:

нужно – it is necessary
- Slightly more neutral/formal than надо.
- Used impersonal with an infinitive: нужно прилагать усилия.
надо – need to / have to
- Very common and colloquial.
- You could also say: Чтобы говорить по-русски свободно, надо прилагать усилия каждый день. (same meaning, more conversational).
должен – must / be obliged to
- Stronger sense of duty or obligation.
- Agrees with the subject:
  - Я должен прилагать усилия. (male speaker)
  - Я должна прилагать усилия. (female speaker)

In this sentence, нужно makes it sound like a general rule, not a personal moral duty.

Why is it по-русски and not на русском? What’s the difference?

Both are possible, but they’re slightly different constructions:

по-русски (adverb) – literally “in a Russian way” → “in Russian” (language)
- Very common for languages in speech:
  - по-английски – in English
  - по-французски – in French
- In the sentence, говорить по-русски = to speak in Russian.
на русском (языке) (preposition + adjective + noun)
- More literally: “in the Russian language”.
- Often used when we emphasize the language as a noun:
  - Он пишет на русском (языке). – He writes in Russian.
  - Книга на русском языке. – A book in Russian.

In your sentence, говорить по-русски is the most natural, everyday way to say it.
You could say говорить на русском, but по-русски is smoother and very idiomatic.

Why is it свободно and not something like свободным? What form is that?

Свободно is an adverb, formed from the adjective свободный (“free”), and it modifies the verb говорить:

говорить свободно – to speak freely / fluently

Compare:

свободный человек – a free person (adjective)
Он говорит свободно. – He speaks freely/fluently. (adverb)

Using an adjective like свободным wouldn’t fit here, because adjectives agree with nouns, not verbs.
We need an adverb to describe how the speaking is done → говорить свободно.

What exactly does прилагать усилия mean? Is прилагать a special verb here?

Прилагать усилия is a very common idiomatic phrase meaning “to make efforts / to put in effort”.

прилагать (imperfective) – literally “to apply / to attach”
усилия – “efforts” (accusative plural of усилие, effort)

So прилагать усилия = to apply efforts → to make efforts.

You’ll often see:

прилагать усилия к чему-либо – to make efforts toward something
e.g. Он прилагает усилия к изучению русского языка. – He is making efforts to study Russian.

Why is it прилагать, not приложить? What aspect choice is being made?

This is the imperfective aspect vs perfective aspect contrast:

прилагать – imperfective (ongoing, repeated, process)
приложить – perfective (single, completed action)

The sentence talks about regular, repeated effort over time:

нужно прилагать усилия каждый день – you need to be making efforts every day / keep making efforts every day

So the imperfective infinitive прилагать is appropriate.
If you used приложить усилия, it would suggest a single, completed effort at some particular moment, which doesn’t match “каждый день” (every day).

What case is усилия in, and why?

Усилия is in the accusative plural, functioning as the direct object of the verb прилагать:

Base form (nominative singular): усилие – effort
Nominative plural: усилия – efforts
Accusative plural of neuter inanimate nouns = same as nominative plural → усилия

Structure:

прилагать (что?) усилия – the verb answers “what?” → accusative.

What about каждый день – which case is this, and why is there no preposition?

Каждый день is an accusative time expression meaning “every day”.

каждый – “every” (masculine accusative singular)
день – “day” (masculine accusative singular = nominative singular form for inanimate nouns)

Russian often uses bare accusative noun phrases to express frequency or duration:

каждый день – every day
каждую неделю – every week
весь день – all day

So:

прилагать усилия каждый день = to make efforts every day, no preposition needed.

Why is there a comma after свободно?

Because Чтобы говорить по-русски свободно is a subordinate clause of purpose, and нужно прилагать усилия каждый день is the main clause.

Rule of thumb in Russian:

Subordinate clause introduced by чтобы is separated from the main clause by a comma.

Structure:

[Чтобы говорить по-русски свободно], [нужно прилагать усилия каждый день].

If you reverse the order, you still keep the comma:

Нужно прилагать усилия каждый день, чтобы говорить по-русски свободно.

Can the word order be changed, for example to Чтобы свободно говорить по-русски… or Нужно каждый день прилагать усилия?

Yes. Russian word order is relatively flexible, especially with adverbs.

All of these are acceptable and natural, with only slight changes in emphasis:

Чтобы свободно говорить по-русски, нужно прилагать усилия каждый день.
Чтобы говорить по-русски свободно, нужно каждый день прилагать усилия.
Чтобы говорить по-русски свободно, каждый день нужно прилагать усилия.

Core constraints:

Чтобы must start its clause.
The infinitive(s) must stay in that clause: Чтобы (что делать?) говорить…
Нужно stays in the main clause with its infinitive прилагать.

Everything else (placement of свободно, каждый день) is somewhat flexible and used for rhythm or emphasis.