Learn Hardcore Russian: Нужно пройти через парк. - It is necessary to walk through the park.

Grammatically, нужно is an impersonal predicative word: it doesn’t show person, gender, or number and does not change its form. It simply expresses necessity.

Why is there no subject like “I” or “we” in this sentence?

Russian often uses impersonal constructions with words like нужно, надо, можно, etc.

Instead of saying “We need to go…”, Russian literally says “It is necessary to go…”, without an explicit subject.

If you want to specify who needs to do it, you usually add a dative pronoun:

Мне нужно пройти через парк. – I need to go through the park.
Нам нужно пройти через парк. – We need to go through the park.
Тебе нужно пройти через парк. – You need to go through the park.

What form is пройти and why is it used?

Пройти is the perfective infinitive of the verb проходить / пройти (to pass, to go through a distance or a place).

Infinitive – the basic dictionary form (“to go through”).
Perfective aspect – focuses on the result / completion of the action, not the process.

With нужно, using a perfective infinitive like пройти usually implies doing the whole action and completing it: you must get through the park, from one side to the other.

What’s the difference between идти and пройти here? Could I say Нужно идти через парк?

You can say Нужно идти через парк, but the nuance changes:

Нужно пройти через парк – you need to go through the park (and reach the other side); completion is implied.
Нужно идти через парк – you need to be going via the park / take the route that goes through the park; it focuses more on the process / route than the completed result.

In instructions or directions, пройти is more common because it sounds like a clear, complete step: “You must go through the park (as a whole segment of your route).”

What does через mean and why is it used with парк?

Через is a preposition that, among other meanings, indicates movement through or across something.

With places, через + accusative usually means:

through (enter one side, exit another):
- через парк – through the park
- через лес – through the forest

So через парк is “through the park”, emphasizing passing across or from one side to the other.

What case is парк in, and why doesn’t it change its form?

After через, the noun goes into the accusative case.

Парк is a masculine, inanimate noun. For such nouns, the accusative form is the same as the nominative:

Nominative: парк
Accusative (inanimate): парк

So it is in the accusative case; it just looks the same as the basic dictionary form.

What’s the difference between Нужно and Надо in a sentence like this?

In many contexts, нужно and надо are almost interchangeable:

Нужно пройти через парк.
Надо пройти через парк.

Both can mean “(One) needs to go through the park.”

Nuances (not always strong, and context‑dependent):

Надо is a bit more colloquial and direct, very common in everyday speech.
Нужно can sound slightly more neutral or formal, and can feel a bit less bossy in some contexts.

For everyday spoken Russian, both are fine here.

How do you say explicitly “We need to go through the park”?

Add a dative pronoun to specify who the necessity applies to:

Нам нужно пройти через парк. – We need to go through the park.

Other persons:

Мне нужно пройти через парк. – I need to go through the park.
Тебе нужно пройти через парк. – You (sg.) need to go through the park.
Вам нужно пройти через парк. – You (polite/pl.) need to go through the park.
Им нужно пройти через парк. – They need to go through the park.

Can I change the word order? For example: Через парк нужно пройти?

Yes, Russian word order is relatively flexible.
All of these are possible and grammatical:

Нужно пройти через парк.
Нужно через парк пройти.
Через парк нужно пройти.

They have the same basic meaning, but the emphasis can shift:

Через парк нужно пройти. puts more focus on через парк – “It’s through the park that you need to go.”
This might contrast with another route (not around the park, not along the river, but through the park).

How would you pronounce Нужно пройти через парк?

Approximate stress and pronunciation (IPA):

Ну́жно – [ˈnuʐnə] (stress on Ну; жн sounds like “zh-n”)
пройти́ – [prɐjˈtʲi] (stress on -ти́; й like English y in “yes”)
че́рез – [ˈt͡ɕerʲɪs] (stress on че́; the first sound ч is like “ch” but softer)
парк – [park] (as written, with rolled r)

Full phrase: Ну́жно пройти́ че́рез парк.

Is нужно an adjective that changes for gender (нужен, нужна, нужно)?

In modern usage here, нужно is treated as an invariable predicative word (like an adverb or category‑of‑state word), not as a normal adjective. It does not change for gender, number, or case in this construction.

Compare:

Ему нужно пройти через парк. – He needs to go through the park.
Ей нужно пройти через парк. – She needs to go through the park.
Им нужно пройти через парк. – They need to go through the park.

Нужно stays exactly the same in all these sentences.

How would you make this sentence negative: “We don’t need to go through the park”?

A natural version is:

Нам не нужно проходить через парк.

Notes:

You add не before нужно.
Often in negative sentences, Russians prefer the imperfective infinitive проходить instead of perfective пройти, because you are denying the need for the action at all, not talking about completing it.

So:

Нам нужно пройти через парк. – We need to (actually go through and finish).
Нам не нужно проходить через парк. – We don’t need to (go that way / take that route).

Could I use another preposition instead of через, like по or сквозь?

Yes, but the meaning changes slightly:

через парк – through / across the park, from one side to the other; very neutral and the most common in directions.
по парку – around / in the park, moving within the park’s area, not necessarily from one side to the other.
- Нужно пройти по парку. – You need to walk in/around the park (inside its territory).
сквозь парк – technically possible, but сквозь is more common with things you pass through physically (сквозь лес, сквозь туман, сквозь стену in a figurative sense). With парк, через парк sounds much more natural.

For normal route directions, через парк is the standard choice.