Questions & Answers about Мне страшно, если светофор не работает на перекрёстке.
Why is it Мне страшно and not Я страшно or Я страшный?
Russian often expresses feelings with an impersonal construction: [to me] + [state].
- мне is dative (“to me / for me”), marking the person experiencing the feeling.
- страшно is a category of state word (a predicative adverb), meaning “scary / frightening (to be in that situation).”
So Мне страшно = “I’m scared” (literally “To me it is scary”).
Я страшный would mean “I am scary” (i.e., you scare other people), which is different.
Is there an omitted word like есть (“is”)? Why isn’t it written?
In the present tense, Russian usually omits the verb “to be” (есть) in normal sentences.
- Мне страшно already functions as a complete present-tense sentence. You could see мне страшно as “(It is) scary to me,” but Russian doesn’t need an explicit “is” here.
What does страшно grammatically count as—an adverb or an adjective?