Learn Hardcore Russian: Мне нравится её поддерживающий стиль: она никогда не кричит и не осуждает. - I like her supportive style: she never shouts or judges.

In Russian, with нравиться, the roles are flipped compared to English.
The person who likes something is in the dative case (here: мне – “to me”), and the thing that is liked is the grammatical subject:

Мне нравится её стиль. = Literally: “Her style is pleasing to me.”

A sentence like Я нравлюсь её стилю would literally mean “I am liked by her style” and is not what you want. So for “I like X”, use Мне нравится X (singular) / Мне нравятся X (plural).

Why is мне in the dative case here?

The dative case often marks the experiencer of a feeling or state in Russian.
With verbs like нравиться, хотеться, казаться, etc., the person affected is in the dative:

Мне нравится… – “I like…”
Тебе нравится… – “You like…”
Ему / Ей нравится… – “He / She likes…”

So мне is “to me”, matching the literal idea “Her supporting style is pleasing to me.”

Is нравится a reflexive verb because of -ся? What is its infinitive?

Yes, нравится ends in -ся, and the infinitive is нравиться. Historically, this -ся comes from a reflexive pronoun, but in modern Russian many -ся verbs are no longer felt as truly “reflexive” in the English sense.

You can think of нравиться as a special verb whose pattern is:

нравиться кому? что? – “to be pleasing to someone; for someone to like something”

Conjugation example:

Мне нравится её стиль.
Нам нравятся её идеи.

Why does нравится agree with стиль and not with мне?

The grammatical subject of the sentence is её поддерживающий стиль, not мне. The verb must agree in number (and sometimes gender in the past tense) with the subject.

Мне нравится её стиль. – “Her style (singular) is pleasing to me.”
Мне нравятся её стили. – “Her styles (plural) are pleasing to me.”

So нравится is singular because стиль is singular. Мне is an indirect object (dative), not the subject.

What is the difference between её and ей, and what is её in this sentence?

Её and ей are different case forms of она (“she”):

её: genitive, accusative, and possessive form – “her” / “of her”
ей: dative – “to her / for her”

In её поддерживающий стиль, её is a possessive pronoun meaning “her”: её стиль = “her style”.

Note: you might see её written as ее without the dots on ё; that’s just an orthographic variation, the word is the same.

What exactly is поддерживающий grammatically, and how is it formed?

Поддерживающий is a present active participle formed from the imperfective verb поддерживать (“to support”).
The pattern is roughly: поддерживать → поддерживающий.

Grammatically, it behaves like an adjective:

It has gender, number, and case: поддерживающий стиль, поддерживающая атмосфера, поддерживающие люди, etc.
In English it corresponds to something like “supporting / that supports”, but here it’s best translated as “supportive”: поддерживающий стиль = “a supportive style”.

Why is it поддерживающий стиль (masculine) and not поддерживающая стиль (feminine), since we’re talking about “her”?

Adjectives and participles in Russian agree with the noun they modify, not with the owner of that noun.
The noun стиль is masculine, so the participle must also be masculine:

(он) стиль → поддерживающий стиль
(она) атмосфера → поддерживающая атмосфера
(оно) письмо → поддерживающее письмо

“Her” ( её ) doesn’t affect the gender of стиль; it only shows possession.

Why is there a colon : after стиль instead of a comma or full stop?

In Russian, a colon is often used when the second part explains, specifies, or gives an example of what is said in the first part.

Here:

Мне нравится её поддерживающий стиль:
она никогда не кричит и не осуждает.

The second clause explains what this “supportive style” looks like in practice. A period would also be grammatically possible, but the colon emphasizes that the second part is an explanation of the first.

Why do we have to use не with никогда? Could we say она никогда кричит?

In Russian, negative words like никогда (“never”), никто (“nobody”), ничто (“nothing”) usually require the verb to also be marked with не. This is called negative concord.

So the pattern is:

никогда не + verb – “never + verb”
Она никогда не кричит. – “She never shouts.”

Она никогда кричит is ungrammatical; you must say никогда не кричит.

Why is никогда used only once for both verbs не кричит and не осуждает? Do we need to repeat it?

It’s natural and completely correct to use никогда once when there are two verbs joined by и (“and”):

Она никогда не кричит и не осуждает.

Here, никогда applies to both actions: she never shouts and never judges.
You can repeat it for extra emphasis or rhythm:

Она никогда не кричит и никогда не осуждает.

But it’s not required; the original sentence is the usual, lighter version.

What verb aspect are кричит and осуждает, and why are imperfective forms used here?

Кричит and осуждает are imperfective forms.
In this sentence, they describe general, repeated behavior or a characteristic pattern: “she never shouts and (never) judges”.

For general truths, habits, or permanent characteristics, Russian uses the imperfective. A perfective form with никогда would usually refer to a specific event or “not even once” in a particular timeframe, which is not the meaning here.

Could we omit она and just say …: никогда не кричит и не осуждает?

Yes, that would be grammatically fine:

Мне нравится её поддерживающий стиль: никогда не кричит и не осуждает.

Russian often omits subject pronouns when the subject is clear from context.
Including она makes the sentence a bit more explicit and can slightly emphasize she, but both versions are acceptable.

Does осуждает need an object, like “me” or “others”? Why is it left out?

The verb осуждать means “to condemn / judge (someone or something)” and normally takes a direct object in the accusative:

Она осуждает людей. – “She judges people.”
Она осуждает меня. – “She judges me.”

However, in general statements about someone’s character, Russian often omits the object if it’s obvious or not important.
In она никогда не осуждает, the idea is “she never judges (people / others / me)” in a general sense, so the object can remain unstated.