Word
Я вернул молоток соседке и сказал, что у меня остался небольшой долг за гвозди.
Meaning
I returned the hammer to my neighbor and said that I still had a small debt for the nails.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Breakdown of Я вернул молоток соседке и сказал, что у меня остался небольшой долг за гвозди.
я
I
и
and
сказать
to say
за
for
Questions & Answers about Я вернул молоток соседке и сказал, что у меня остался небольшой долг за гвозди.
Why is вернул used here, and what’s the aspect?
Вернул is past tense, masculine singular, perfective aspect of вернуть (to return / give back). The perfective shows the action is completed: the hammer was returned as a finished event.
If you used imperfective (возвращал), it would usually mean a process/repeated action (I was returning / used to return) or it would focus on the action without emphasizing completion.
Why is соседке in the dative case?
Because вернуть commonly takes:
- a direct object in the accusative (молоток) = what was returned
- an indirect object in the dative (соседке) = to whom it was returned
So вернул молоток соседке = returned the hammer to the (female) neighbor. Dative answers кому? (to whom?).
Does соседке mean the neighbor is female? What if it were a male neighbor?
Yes. соседке is dative singular of соседка (female neighbor).
For a male neighbor you’d use соседу (dative singular of сосед): Я вернул молоток соседу.
Can Russian drop Я here?