Нам пора бы купить ещё одну свечу, потому что одна уже сломалась.

Because пора uses the dative case for the person who feels the need or urgency.

So нам пора literally means something like to us, it is time.

Compare:

• Мы покупаем свечу = We are buying a candle
• Нам пора купить свечу = It’s time for us to buy a candle

This is a very common Russian pattern:

• Мне пора идти = It’s time for me to go
• Тебе пора спать = It’s time for you to sleep
• Нам пора уходить = It’s time for us to leave

So after пора, expect dative, not nominative.

Пора by itself means it’s time.

Adding бы makes it softer, less blunt, and often slightly suggestive or regretful. In English, it can feel like:

• we really should
• it would be about time
• it’s probably time
• we ought to

So:

• Нам пора купить ещё одну свечу = It’s time for us to buy another candle
• Нам пора бы купить ещё одну свечу = We really should buy another candle / It would be about time for us to buy another candle

This use of бы often adds a nuance of gentle urging rather than a flat statement.

Because купить is perfective, and here the speaker means one completed action: buying one additional candle.

• купить = to buy, as a completed act
• покупать = to buy, be buying, buy habitually, or focus on the process

In this sentence, the idea is not we should be in the process of buying candles, but rather we should go and get one.

So купить is the natural choice.

Compare:

• Нам пора купить свечу = We should buy a candle
• Нам пора покупать свечи = It’s time to start buying candles / It’s time to be buying candles

The imperfective version would suggest a more general activity or repeated action.

Ещё одну means one more or another one.

It is made of:

• ещё = still, yet, more, another
• одну = one, in the feminine accusative form

Together, ещё одну свечу means one more candle.

Here that makes sense because one candle is no longer usable, so they need an additional one to replace it.

Both can sometimes be translated as another, but they are not the same.

• ещё одну = one more, an additional one
• другую = a different one, another one of a different kind

Here ещё одну свечу focuses on adding/replacing one.

If you said другую свечу, it could sound more like:

• a different candle
• not this one, but another one

So in this sentence, ещё одну is more natural because the point is we need one more after one broke.

Because свечу is the accusative singular form, and the candle is the direct object of купить.

Dictionary form:

• свеча = candle

Accusative singular:

• свечу

This is the normal pattern for many feminine nouns ending in -а:

• книга → книгу
• машина → машину
• свеча → свечу

So:

• купить свечу = to buy a candle

Because Russian often leaves out a noun when it is already obvious from context.

Here одна means one candle or one of them.

So:

• потому что одна уже сломалась = because one has already broken

The full version would be:

• потому что одна свеча уже сломалась

But repeating свеча is unnecessary, so Russian naturally omits it.

This is very common:

• У меня две книги. Одна интересная, другая скучная. = I have two books. One is interesting, the other is boring.

Сломалась comes from сломаться, which means to break or to become broken.

This is different from сломать, which is usually to break something.

Compare:

• Я сломал свечу = I broke the candle
• Свеча сломалась = The candle broke / became broken

So the -ся form here makes the verb intransitive: the subject itself ended up broken.

Also, сломалась is past tense feminine singular, because the subject is одна = one [candle], and свеча is feminine.

Compare:

• стол сломался = the table broke
• машина сломалась = the car broke down
• одна свеча сломалась = one candle broke

Yes, although in English a candle broke may sound a little less common than snapped or got broken.

In Russian, сломаться is a normal verb for an object becoming broken or unusable. So if the candle physically snapped or became damaged, свеча сломалась is understandable and natural.

Also, in some contexts свеча can mean spark plug, and with that meaning сломалась is especially natural. But if your sentence is clearly about an actual candle, the phrasing still works.

Уже means already.

It shows that the breakage has already happened, which is why buying another candle now makes sense.

So:

• одна сломалась = one broke
• одна уже сломалась = one has already broken / one is already broken

It adds a sense of current urgency.

Because потому что introduces a subordinate clause of reason.

Russian normally puts a comma before потому что, just like English often separates a reason clause with punctuation in writing.

So the structure is:

• main clause: Нам пора бы купить ещё одну свечу
• reason clause: потому что одна уже сломалась

This comma is standard Russian punctuation.

No, Russian word order is fairly flexible, although different orders can change the emphasis.

The given sentence is natural:

• Нам пора бы купить ещё одну свечу, потому что одна уже сломалась.

You could also say:

• Пора бы нам купить ещё одну свечу...

That puts a bit more focus on пора бы.

And in the second clause:

• ...потому что уже одна сломалась

is possible, but одна уже сломалась is more neutral here.

So the sentence’s word order is natural and standard, but not the only possible order.

Yes, but the nuance changes.

• Нам нужно купить ещё одну свечу = We need to buy another candle
• Нам пора бы купить ещё одну свечу = We really should buy another candle / It’s about time we bought another candle

Нужно expresses straightforward necessity.

Пора бы suggests:

• the right time has come
• this should probably have been done already
• a mild push or recommendation

So both are correct, but пора бы has more of a timing / high-time feeling.

The main stresses are:

• Нам пора́ бы купи́ть ещё́ одну́ свечу́, потому́ что одна́ уже́ слома́лась.

A few useful ones to notice:

• пора́
• купи́ть
• ещё́
• одну́
• свечу́
• потому́
• одна́
• уже́
• слома́лась

Stress in Russian is important because it is not always predictable, so it is worth learning words together with their stress.