Breakdown of Точка зрения моего брата отличается от моей, но это не мешает нам дружить.
Questions & Answers about Точка зрения моего брата отличается от моей, но это не мешает нам дружить.
Because here моего брата is in the genitive case, showing possession after a noun.
- Точка зрения моего брата = the point of view of my brother.
In Russian, this “of X” relation is usually expressed by genitive.
Forms of мой брат:
- nominative: мой брат – my brother (as subject)
- genitive: моего брата – of my brother
If you said точка зрения мой брат, it would be ungrammatical, because мой брат is nominative and cannot directly depend on another noun like that.
Word order:
- точка зрения моего брата is the neutral, normal order.
- точка зрения брата моего is possible, but sounds more literary or emphatic.
Моей is short for моей точки зрения.
Full, “unshortened” version:
- Точка зрения моего брата отличается от моей точки зрения…
To avoid repetition, Russian often drops the repeated noun and keeps only the adjective/pronoun that agrees with it:
- от моей = from mine (i.e. from my point of view).
Grammatically:
- моей is feminine, genitive singular, agreeing with the omitted точки (зрения).
- The preposition от requires genitive, so you get от моей.
The verb отличаться (to differ, to be different) is normally used with от + genitive:
- отличаться от чего? / от кого? – to differ from what / from whom?
So you get:
- отличается от моей (точки зрения) – is different from mine.
Using с, из, etc., here would be wrong. This is a fixed government pattern: отличаться от + genitive.
Отличается is отличать + -ся in 3rd person singular present.
- отличать – to distinguish (something from something)
- отличаться – to be distinguished, to differ, to be different
The suffix -ся often makes the verb:
- reflexive (acting on oneself), or
- “middle voice” / intransitive, like to differ, to be seen, etc.
Here it has that middle-voice meaning:
- точка зрения моего брата отличается = my brother’s point of view is different.
Because отличаться takes the preposition от:
- отличаться от чего? – to differ from something.
You cannot directly put the noun in instrumental or another case without от in this meaning.
Correct pattern: отличаться от + genitive → от моей (точки зрения).
The verb мешать (to hinder, to bother, to prevent) takes the dative for the person who is affected:
- мешать кому? – to bother / hinder whom? → dative
- мешать мне – to bother me
- мешать тебе – to bother you
- мешать нам – to bother us
So:
- это не мешает нам… – this doesn’t prevent us…
нам is dative plural.
The common pattern is:
- мешать кому? что делать? – to prevent someone from doing something
So you use:
- дружить – infinitive (to be friends / to be on friendly terms)
Literally:
- это не мешает нам дружить = this does not prevent us from being friends / from maintaining our friendship.
Using a noun like дружбе instead of дружить here would change the structure and not fit the usual verb pattern.
Yes, that is grammatically correct and natural:
- …но это не мешает нам дружить.
- …но это не мешает нам быть друзьями.
Both mean almost the same. Nuance:
- дружить focuses more on the ongoing activity/state of being friends.
- быть друзьями sounds a bit more static: to be friends (as a status).
In everyday speech, дружить is slightly more common and idiomatic in this exact phrase.
Both relate to opinions, but there is a nuance:
мнение – opinion in general. Very common, neutral:
- мнение моего брата – my brother’s opinion.
точка зрения – literally point of view, a somewhat more “formal/intellectual” expression. It suggests a perspective, angle, position from which something is viewed:
- точка зрения моего брата – my brother’s point of view (his perspective).
Often they can be interchangeable, but точка зрения can sound a bit more formal or emphasizes the “perspective” aspect.
Это here is a demonstrative pronoun referring to the whole situation mentioned before (the difference in points of view).
In Russian:
- это often refers to an entire fact, action, or previous clause:
- Он опоздал, и это всех разозлило. – He was late and this made everyone angry.
Similarly:
- Точка зрения моего брата отличается от моей, но это не мешает нам дружить.
Это = the fact that our points of view differ.
Оно usually refers to a specific neuter noun (e.g. письмо, место) already mentioned, not an abstract fact.
Russian almost always uses a comma before но when it connects two clauses or contrasting parts:
- …отличается от моей, но это не мешает нам дружить.
Here we clearly have two clauses:
- Точка зрения моего брата отличается от моей
- это не мешает нам дружить
They are joined by the conjunction но (but), so a comma is required by standard punctuation rules.
Отличается is present tense, imperfective aspect.
Here it states a general, ongoing fact:
- My brother’s point of view is (in general) different from mine.
You could change the tense if you talk about another time:
- отличалась – was different (past)
- будет отличаться – will be different (future)
But in this sentence, the idea is timeless / generally true, so the present is most natural.
Yes, точка зрения is a fixed expression meaning point of view, but grammatically it is still two words:
- точка – feminine noun
- зрения – genitive singular of зрение (vision, sight)
The whole phrase declines by changing точка, while зрения usually stays in genitive:
- nominative: точка зрения
- genitive: точки зрения
- dative: точке зрения
- accusative: точку зрения
- instrumental: точкой зрения
- prepositional: о точке зрения
In your sentence we have nominative:
- Точка зрения моего брата – subject of the sentence.