Breakdown of Мне интересно говорить о том, как проходит день.
Questions & Answers about Мне интересно говорить о том, как проходит день.
Russian often uses an impersonal construction with the dative case to express feelings, states, or reactions:
- Мне интересно literally: To me it-is-interesting
Natural English: I find it interesting / It’s interesting for me
Here:
- мне = dative of я (to me)
- интересно = short-form neuter adjective used impersonally
Using я интересуюсь changes the meaning:
- Я интересуюсь этим = I am interested in this (I have an interest in this topic)
Using я интересен describes how others see you:
- Я интересен людям = I am interesting to people
So Мне интересно говорить… is the natural way to say I find it interesting to talk…
Short-form adjectives in neuter (интересно, холодно, жарко, страшно) are used in impersonal sentences to describe a general state:
- Мне интересно. = It is interesting to me.
- Мне холодно. = I am cold.
- Ему скучно. = He is bored / It’s boring for him.
There is no clear grammatical subject like it in Russian. Instead, the state (интересно) is just asserted, and the person is in the dative (мне). The neuter short form is the usual choice in this pattern.
After impersonal phrases like мне интересно, Russian often uses an infinitive to express what is interesting to do:
- Мне интересно говорить… = I find it interesting to talk…
If you say:
- Мне интересно, я говорю о том… – this sounds wrong and unconnected: It is interesting to me, I speak about…
The infinitive говорить here functions like:
- to talk / talking
Compare:
- Мне нравится читать. = I like to read / reading.
- Мне интересно изучать языки. = I find it interesting to study languages.
So интересно + infinitive is a standard pattern.
Говорить о том, как проходит день literally:
- to talk about that, how the day passes
Russian cannot put a finite clause directly after a preposition. The preposition о must govern a noun or pronoun, so you insert a demonstrative pronoun том in the required case, then attach the clause with как:
- о том, как… = about how… (literally: about that, how…)
This structure is very common:
- думать о том, что будет завтра = to think about what will happen tomorrow
- рассказывать о том, где он живёт = to tell about where he lives
So о том, как проходит день is the grammatically required way to say about how the day goes.
The preposition о can appear as об or обо to make pronunciation easier:
- об этом (before a vowel э)
- об одном (before vowel о and certain consonant clusters)
- обо мне (set phrase)
Before a word starting with a consonant like т in том, you normally just use о:
- о том – correct and natural
- об том – incorrect here
So it is говорить о том, not об том.
Том is the prepositional singular form of the demonstrative pronoun тот (that):
- Masculine nominative: тот день = that day
- Masculine prepositional: о том дне = about that day
Here о requires the prepositional case, so:
- о том, как… = about that, how…
Grammatically:
- о → requires prepositional
- тот → becomes том in the prepositional
Both word orders are possible, but they have different emphasis:
- как проходит день – more neutral, common order
- как день проходит – slight emphasis on день, often with a bit more spoken, expressive feel
In this sentence, the default как проходит день sounds more natural and smooth, especially in a set phrase about daily routine. Using как день проходит would also be grammatically correct, just with a slightly different intonation/emphasis.
Inside the clause как проходит день, the word день is the subject of the verb проходит:
- день (что делает?) проходит – the day (what does it do?) passes / goes
As the subject, it takes the nominative case: день.
You would see other forms in other roles:
- у меня тяжёлый день – nominative (subject or complement)
- в дне мало событий – prepositional (в дне)
- целого дня не хватило – genitive (дня)
But in как проходит день, день simply performs the action, so nominative is correct.
Проходит is the 3rd person singular present of проходить (imperfective), which here means:
- to pass, to go by (about time, a day, a lesson, an event)
Как проходит день = how the day goes / what the day is like / how the day passes
Present tense is used because we are talking about a typical, repeated, or current situation:
- как проходит день (обычно) – how the day usually goes
- как проходит твой день – what your day is like
Imperfective aspect stresses the process / routine, not completion. If you used perfective (пройдёт день), it would mean how the day will end / be over, which is a different meaning.
Yes:
- как проходит день – how the day goes (general, can be one’s day, a typical day, etc.)
- как проходит мой день – how my day goes, explicitly about my day
Both are grammatically correct. The version without a possessive can sound more general or more context-dependent. If the context already makes it clear whose day is being discussed, Russian often omits the possessive.
Yes, you can:
- Мне интересно, как проходит день.
= It’s interesting to me how the day goes.
This focuses on your interest in the information / fact itself.
The original sentence:
- Мне интересно говорить о том, как проходит день.
= I find it interesting to talk about how the day goes.
So:
- with говорить о том… – focus is on the activity of talking about it
- without говорить – focus is on simply finding it interesting as a fact
Both о and про can mean about, but:
- о is more neutral, standard, used in both spoken and written language.
- про is more colloquial, common in everyday speech.
So:
- говорить о том, как проходит день – neutral, standard.
- говорить про то, как проходит день – a bit more informal, conversational.
Grammatically, both are fine. Stylistically, о том is safer in more formal or written contexts.
Yes, but the meaning changes slightly:
говорить (imperfective) – emphasizes the process / activity in general, no focus on beginning or end:
Мне интересно говорить… = I generally find it interesting to talk (in general, as an activity).поговорить (perfective) – emphasizes doing the action once / for some time / on one occasion:
Мне интересно поговорить… = I’m interested in having a (one-time) talk / I’d like to talk (on this occasion).
So the original sentence describes a general preference (I enjoy talking about this kind of thing), while with поговорить it sounds more like a current intention or desire to have a talk now or at some point.