Learn Hardcore Russian: Каждый вечер я говорю себе, что всё будет хорошо. - Every evening I tell myself that everything will be fine.

Here каждый вечер is in the accusative case, used as an adverbial of time, but for inanimate masculine nouns the accusative form looks the same as the nominative, so you just see каждый вечер.

What tense and aspect is говорю in, and why is it used here instead of something like скажу?

Говорю is present tense, 1st person singular, from the imperfective verb говорить (to speak, to say). Imperfective is used for:

repeated, habitual actions
ongoing processes

The sentence means “Every evening I (habitually) say to myself…”, so imperfective present (говорю) is exactly right.

Скажу is future tense of the perfective сказать (I will say once), which would sound like a single, completed act, not a regular habit.

Why do we use себе here and not мне or себя?

The verb говорить normally takes a dative object for “to whom” you say something:

говорить мне – to say to me
говорить тебе – to say to you

When the person you speak to is the same as the subject, Russian uses the reflexive pronoun себе (dative case), “to oneself”:

я говорю себе – I say to myself
он говорит себе – he says to himself

Себя is the reflexive in genitive/accusative, not dative, so it does not fit after говорить in this meaning.

What is the difference between себе and сам себе?

себе = “to myself / yourself / himself” (just the reflexive pronoun).
сам себе literally adds сам (self), so it emphasizes that you do it to yourself specifically, often contrasting with others.

Here:

я говорю себе – I say to myself.
я говорю сам себе – I say to myself (and not to anyone else); there’s extra emphasis on “myself”.

The basic, neutral version in this sentence is я говорю себе.

Why is there a comma before что in Russian?

In Russian, when что introduces a subordinate clause (“that…”), you normally put a comma before it:

Я думаю, что он придёт. – I think that he will come.

In this sentence:

я говорю себе – main clause
что всё будет хорошо – subordinate clause (what I say)

So the comma is obligatory: …я говорю себе, что всё будет хорошо.

Is что here a question word (“what?”), or something else?

Here что is not a question word. It is a conjunction meaning that, introducing an object clause:

я говорю себе, что всё будет хорошо – I say to myself that everything will be fine.

It doesn’t make the sentence a question; it just connects the content of what is being said to the verb говорю.

Could you say this sentence without что, like in English: “I say to myself everything will be fine”?

No, in natural Russian you almost always need что in this structure. You say:

Я говорю себе, что всё будет хорошо. ✅

Without что, it sounds ungrammatical or extremely odd:

Я говорю себе всё будет хорошо. ❌

So think of что as required after verbs like говорить, думать, знать, помнить when you mean “that …”.

What is the difference between всё and все?

всё (with ё) – “everything, all (things)” (neuter singular).
все (with е) – “everyone, all (people)” (plural).

In this sentence, we mean “everything in general”, so it must be всё:

всё будет хорошо – everything will be fine.

If you said все будут хорошие, that would mean “everyone will be good” (and it would also need adjective agreement), which is a different idea.

How is будет formed, and what tense is всё будет хорошо?

Будет is the 3rd person singular future tense of the verb быть (to be).

он/она/оно будет – he/she/it will be

So всё будет хорошо literally is “everything will be good/fine” – it’s simple future tense. Russian often expresses the future of “to be” with быть + a short predicate (adjective/adverb), as here with хорошо.

Why is it хорошо and not an adjective like хорошее or хорошим?

Хорошо here is an adverb-like predicative word, used to describe a general state: “fine, okay, good (in general)”. Russian often uses хорошо/плохо with быть:

Всё хорошо. – Everything is fine.
Всё будет хорошо. – Everything will be fine.

If you used хорошее or хорошим, you would need a specific neuter noun:

Всё будет хорошим временем. – Everything will be a good time.

That’s not the meaning here; we just want the general “fine”, so хорошо is correct.

Is the word order fixed? Could I say Каждый вечер себе говорю, что всё будет хорошо?

Russian word order is flexible, but not all permutations sound equally natural.

The neutral, most natural order here is:

Каждый вечер я говорю себе, что всё будет хорошо.

Other possible, but more marked, variants:

Каждый вечер я себе говорю, что всё будет хорошо. (slight emphasis on себе)
Себе я каждый вечер говорю, что всё будет хорошо. (strong emphasis on себе, more poetic or emotional)

Каждый вечер себе говорю… without я is possible in spoken, informal Russian, but it sounds a bit elliptical and stylistically less standard. For learners, stick with я говорю себе.

Can I drop я and just say Каждый вечер говорю себе, что всё будет хорошо?

Yes, grammatically you can drop я, because the ending -ю in говорю already shows 1st person singular. Native speakers often omit subject pronouns when the meaning is clear from context.

Каждый вечер говорю себе, что всё будет хорошо. – understandable and colloquial.

However, for clear, standard Russian (especially in writing or at beginner level), it’s safer to keep я:

Каждый вечер я говорю себе, что всё будет хорошо.

Does каждый вечер mean “every evening” as a habit, or could it mean “this evening, every time”?

Каждый вечер on its own always means a habitual or repeated action: “every evening (regularly, as a routine)”.

In this sentence, it clearly describes a regular habit:

Каждый вечер я говорю себе… – I do this every evening, not just once.

For a one-time statement about tonight, you would say something like:

Сегодня вечером я скажу себе, что всё будет хорошо. – This evening I will say to myself…