Breakdown of Я уже одолжил у неё молоток, но забыл вернуть его вечером.
Questions & Answers about Я уже одолжил у неё молоток, но забыл вернуть его вечером.
Одолжить can be confusing because it’s used in two patterns:
- одолжить у кого-то что-то = to borrow something from someone (that’s what you have here: одолжил у неё молоток).
- одолжить кому-то что-то = to lend something to someone.
So the direction is shown by the case/preposition:
- у неё (from her) → you borrowed
- ей (to her) → you lent
У means at / by / from (someone’s place/person), and in borrowing contexts it corresponds to from.
- у + Genitive is required, so она → у неё (Genitive form of она).
This is the normal way to express from her in Russian for borrowing.
They’re forms of the same pronoun (she / her), but the н- appears after certain prepositions.
- Without a preposition: её (e.g., Я вижу её = I see her)
- After prepositions like у, к, с, о, для, без, из etc.: неё (e.g., у неё, к ней, с ней)
So у неё is correct; у её is not.
Russian past tense agrees in gender (and number).
- одолжил = past, masculine, singular
- одолжила would be a female speaker
- одолжили would be plural or polite you
So Я уже одолжил... implies the speaker is male (or speaking in masculine grammatical form).
Уже means already and signals that the borrowing happened earlier than the current reference point. It often implies:
- the action is completed, and
- it’s not new information in the timeline: I’ve already borrowed it...
It pairs naturally with a completed past action like одолжил.
In одолжил молоток, молоток is the direct object (what you borrowed), so it’s in the accusative.
For many masculine inanimate nouns, nominative = accusative in form:
- молоток (Nom) = молоток (Acc)
You identify it by function (object of the verb), not by a different ending.
Его refers back to молоток and means it (literally him, but for masculine nouns it’s the same form).
Often it can be omitted if it’s completely clear:
- ...но забыл вернуть вечером is possible in conversation.
But including его is very common and helps clarity, especially if several objects were mentioned.
Вернуть is perfective: it focuses on the completed result (to return it back / to give it back as a finished act).
- Here you forgot to do the completed action, so perfective fits well.
Возвращать is imperfective and would emphasize the process/habit:
- забыл возвращать would sound like you repeatedly forgot as a habit (or you forgot the general practice), which is different.
Also, вернуть already contains the idea of returning; adding назад is usually unnecessary unless you’re being extra explicit or contrastive.
Забыть can take an infinitive to mean to forget to do something:
- забыл вернуть = (I) forgot to return (it)
So the structure is:
- забыл (past of forget) + что сделать? (infinitive, usually perfective for a single intended action)
Вечером means in the evening and is in the instrumental form used for many time expressions.
- вечер (base noun) → вечером (time adverbial)
It’s a very common pattern: утром, днём, вечером, ночью.
It can be either depending on context, but in this sentence it most naturally means that evening (a specific time connected to the story).
If you wanted to clearly mean in the evenings (habitually), Russian often adds context or uses plural framing, e.g. describing routine, or по вечерам.
Russian word order is flexible and changes emphasis:
- Я уже одолжил у неё молоток... = neutral
- Я уже у неё одолжил молоток... = emphasizes from her (not from someone else)
- Молоток я уже одолжил у неё... = emphasizes the hammer as the topic/contrast
The meaning stays basically the same; the focus shifts.
Yes, it’s required in standard writing because но connects two clauses:
- Я уже одолжил..., но (я) забыл...
Even though the subject я isn’t repeated after но, it’s understood, and Russian punctuation still uses the comma.