Мне не удалось понять это правило с первого раза.

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Breakdown of Мне не удалось понять это правило с первого раза.

• не: not
• правило: the rule
• этот: this

Questions & Answers about Мне не удалось понять это правило с первого раза.

Why is мне in the dative case?

Because this sentence uses an impersonal construction:

кому-то удалось + infinitive = someone managed to do something

In this pattern, the person is marked with the dative:

• мне удалось = I managed
• ему удалось = he managed
• нам удалось = we managed

So мне does not mean to me word-for-word in normal English style; it marks the person for whom the success happened.

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What does удалось mean here?

Удалось is the past tense of удаться, a verb meaning something like:

• to succeed
• to work out
• to turn out successfully
• in this construction, to manage

So:

• Мне удалось понять = I managed to understand
• Мне не удалось понять = I didn't manage to understand / I failed to understand

A very literal sense is something like “It did not succeed for me to understand…”, which explains why the sentence is built differently from English.

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Why is it не удалось понять, not something like ?