Questions & Answers about Мне приходится привыкать к тому, что коммунальные услуги дорожают каждую зиму.
Because приходится is most often used in an impersonal pattern: кому (dative) + приходится + infinitive.
It means something like I have to / I end up having to / it turns out I must…, where the person is not the grammatical subject, but the one affected by circumstances.
So мне приходится привыкать… = I have to get used to…
приходится expresses necessity caused by circumstances (not necessarily your own choice). It’s close to:
- I have to…
- I’m forced to… (often, but not always)
- I end up having to…
It often sounds less “rule-like” than надо / нужно, and more like “life makes me do it.”
In this construction, приходится is impersonal: it doesn’t agree with мне.
The verb stays in 3rd person singular (present/future) because there is no grammatical subject:
- мне приходится
- тебе приходится
- нам приходится, etc.
Only the person in dative changes.
привыкать is the imperfective “process” verb: to be getting used to / to get accustomed (gradually).
Imperfective fits well with:
- repeated situations,
- ongoing adaptation,
- “having to keep adjusting.”
The perfective partner would be привыкнуть (focus on reaching the result: “to get used to it completely”).
- Мне приходится привыкать… = I have to keep getting used to it / I’m in the process of adjusting (possibly repeatedly).
- Мне приходится привыкнуть… = I have to manage to get used to it (once, as a result).
In this sentence, because prices rise every winter, it’s a repeating/ongoing reality, so привыкать sounds natural.
The verb привыкать/привыкнуть requires the preposition к + dative: привыкать к чему?
When what you’re “getting used to” is a whole clause, Russian often uses the “placeholder” structure:
- к тому, что + clause
So к тому, что коммунальные услуги дорожают… literally means “to the fact that…”
тому is dative singular of то (as part of к тому).
It’s dative because the preposition к requires dative:
- к чему? к тому
- к кому? к другу, etc.
коммунальные услуги literally means municipal/utility services (water, heating, electricity, etc.).
Grammatically:
- услуги = plural nominative (subject of the clause)
- коммунальные = plural adjective agreeing with услуги
It’s plural because it refers to a set of services/bills.
дорожают is present tense of imperfective дорожать (to become more expensive).
With каждую зиму, it expresses a habitual/repeated pattern: “they get more expensive every winter.”
Russian often uses present tense for recurring events, like English “Every winter, prices go up.”
Because каждую зиму is an accusative time expression meaning each winter / every winter.
Many “how often/which time period?” expressions use accusative:
- каждый день
- каждую неделю
- каждую зиму
Here, зиму is accusative singular, and каждую agrees with it.
Yes, word order is flexible. The current order highlights the “fact clause” as the thing you must adapt to:
- Мне приходится привыкать к тому, что коммунальные услуги дорожают каждую зиму.
You could also say:
- Мне приходится привыкать к тому, что каждую зиму дорожают коммунальные услуги.
That version puts каждую зиму earlier and can slightly emphasize the “every winter” repetition. The meaning stays essentially the same.
Yes. A common informal word is коммуналка (utilities / utility bills). For example:
- Мне приходится привыкать к тому, что коммуналка дорожает каждую зиму.
коммунальные услуги is more official/neutral; коммуналка is conversational.