Нужно пройти через парк.

the park

Breakdown of Нужно пройти через парк.

• нужный: necessary
• через: through
• пройти: to pass

Questions & Answers about Нужно пройти через парк.

What exactly does Нужно mean here?

Нужно is a modal word meaning something like “it is necessary / one needs to.”

In full, Нужно пройти через парк means “(It’s) necessary to go through the park / One needs to go 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?