Learn Hardcore Russian: Стоит ансамблю услышать первый аккорд, как все сразу находят общий ритм. - As soon as the ensemble hears the first chord, everyone immediately finds the common rhythm.

Word

Стоит ансамблю услышать первый аккорд, как все сразу находят общий ритм.

Meaning

As soon as the ensemble hears the first chord, everyone immediately finds the common rhythm.

Part of speech

sentence

Pronunciation

Course

Lesson

Breakdown of Стоит ансамблю услышать первый аккорд, как все сразу находят общий ритм.

What does стоит ... как ... mean here? It looks odd if I only know стоить as to cost or to be worth.

Here стоит is part of a fixed construction:

Стоит + dative + infinitive, как + clause

It means:

So:

Стоит ансамблю услышать первый аккорд, как...
= As soon as the ensemble hears the first chord, ...

This use is different from:

It is a set expression and is quite common in written Russian.

Why is ансамблю in the dative case?

Because in this construction, the person or thing that performs the action is usually put in the dative:

So here:

Even though ансамбль is logically the one that hears the chord, grammatically the construction requires the dative.

Why is the verb услышать an infinitive?