Breakdown of На этой странице шрифт слишком мелкий, поэтому мне трудно читать.
Questions & Answers about На этой странице шрифт слишком мелкий, поэтому мне трудно читать.
На этой странице means on this page.
Here на means on, and after на in this kind of location meaning, Russian uses the prepositional case.
- страница → на странице
- эта страница → на этой странице
So:
- на = on
- этой = this, in the prepositional feminine singular form
- странице = page, in the prepositional singular
Russian uses на странице where English uses on the page.
Because the phrase is not the subject of the sentence. It comes after the preposition на, which requires the prepositional case here.
Dictionary forms:
- эта = nominative feminine singular
- страница = nominative singular
But after на with the meaning of location:
- эта → этой
- страница → странице
So:
- эта страница = this page
- на этой странице = on this page
Yes. Шрифт commonly means font or typeface.
In this sentence, шрифт слишком мелкий means the font size is too small. Russian often uses шрифт in contexts where English speakers might say:
- the font is too small
- the text is too small
- the print is too small
So шрифт is a very natural word here.
This is a very common question.
Both words can relate to smallness, but they are not used the same way.
- маленький = small in general
- мелкий = fine, tiny, too small to see/read comfortably
With print, text, handwriting, or font size, Russian very often uses мелкий, not маленький.
So:
- мелкий шрифт = small/fine print, small font
- маленький шрифт is possible in some contexts, but it sounds less natural here
A good way to think of мелкий here is too fine / too tiny.
Both are possible, but they do slightly different jobs in the sentence.
Here the sentence is built like this:
- шрифт = subject
- слишком мелкий = predicate adjective phrase
So Шрифт слишком мелкий means The font is too small.
If you say слишком мелкий шрифт, that is a noun phrase meaning a too-small font. For example:
- На этой странице слишком мелкий шрифт.
On this page, the font is too small.
That version is also natural. The original sentence simply uses the standard subject + adjective pattern.
Слишком means too in the sense of excessively.
So:
- слишком мелкий = too small
- слишком большой = too big
- слишком быстро = too fast
It is stronger than simply saying something is small. It means it is small to an excessive degree, enough to cause a problem.
That fits the second part of the sentence: поэтому мне трудно читать.
Because поэтому here introduces the result or consequence: therefore / so / that’s why.
The sentence has two parts:
- На этой странице шрифт слишком мелкий
- поэтому мне трудно читать
Russian normally separates these parts with a comma.
So the logic is:
- the font is too small,
- therefore it is hard for me to read.
Поэтому means therefore, so, or that’s why.
It connects the cause and the result:
- cause: шрифт слишком мелкий
- result: мне трудно читать
So:
- На этой странице шрифт слишком мелкий, поэтому мне трудно читать.
- The font on this page is too small, so it is hard for me to read.
It often appears near the beginning of the second clause, as it does here.
Because трудно here does not mean with difficulty as an adverb describing the action directly. Instead, the structure means it is difficult for me to read.
Russian very often uses this pattern:
- мне трудно
- infinitive
- мне легко
- infinitive
- мне сложно
- infinitive
Examples:
- Мне трудно понять. = It is hard for me to understand.
- Мне легко запомнить. = It is easy for me to remember.
If you said я трудно читаю, that would sound unnatural in this meaning.
So мне трудно читать is the normal Russian way to express I have difficulty reading or it is hard for me to read.
Because Russian uses the dative in this impersonal pattern to mark the person who experiences the situation.
In мне трудно читать:
- мне = to me / for me
- трудно = difficult
- читать = to read
Literally, it is something like:
- To me, it is difficult to read
This is a very common Russian structure:
- мне холодно = I am cold
- ему скучно = he is bored
- нам интересно = we are interested / it is interesting to us
- мне трудно читать = it is hard for me to read
Because after words like трудно, легко, сложно, приятно, Russian often uses an infinitive to say what action is easy, hard, pleasant, and so on.
So:
- мне трудно читать = it is hard for me to read
- мне легко говорить по-русски = it is easy for me to speak Russian
- ему сложно работать ночью = it is hard for him to work at night
The infinitive names the action in a general way.
Because the sentence is talking about the general activity of reading, not one completed reading event.
Читать is imperfective and is the normal choice for:
- general ability
- ongoing activity
- repeated activity
- actions viewed as a process
Here the idea is not to finish reading something once, but simply to read in general under these conditions.
That is why читать is the natural form.
Yes, both are possible, but they are slightly different in tone.
- мне трудно читать = it is hard for me to read
- мне сложно читать = it is difficult for me to read
- мне тяжело читать = it is hard for me to read, often with a stronger sense of strain or discomfort
In this sentence, трудно is very neutral and natural.
So the original version is a good standard choice.