Word
Слабый сигнал мешает мне общаться онлайн.
Meaning
A weak signal prevents me from communicating online.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Breakdown of Слабый сигнал мешает мне общаться онлайн.
мне
me
общаться
to communicate
слабый
weak
сигнал
the signal
Questions & Answers about Слабый сигнал мешает мне общаться онлайн.
Why is it мешает мне общаться—what does мешать mean here, and how does this pattern work?
Мешать here means to interfere with / prevent someone from doing something. A very common pattern is:
мешать + кому (dative) + infinitive
So мешает мне общаться literally means (it) interferes with me to communicate → prevents me from communicating.
Examples:
- Шум мешает мне спать. = Noise prevents me from sleeping.
- Дождь мешает нам гулять. = Rain prevents us from walking.
Why is it мне and not меня?
Because мешать in this meaning takes the person affected in the dative case (кому?).
So:
- мешает мне = prevents me
- мешает ему = prevents him
- мешает нам = prevents us
Using меня (accusative) would be incorrect with this construction.
Why is общаться in the infinitive? Why not a finite verb form?
After мешать, Russian typically uses an infinitive to express the action that is being hindered: мешает (кому) что делать.
You could rephrase the idea with a clause, but it becomes heavier: