Сьогодні мені жарко в пальті, але без нього на вулиці небезпечно холодно.

Today I feel hot in my coat, but without it it is dangerously cold outside.

Breakdown of Сьогодні мені жарко в пальті, але без нього на вулиці небезпечно холодно.

• мені: me
• в: in
• на: on
• сьогодні: today
• без: without
• але: but
• вулиця: the street
• пальто: the coat
• холодно: cold
• жарко: hot
• нього: it
• небезпечно: dangerously

Questions & Answers about Сьогодні мені жарко в пальті, але без нього на вулиці небезпечно холодно.

In Сьогодні мені жарко…, why is it мені жарко and not something like я жаркий or я гарячий?

Ukrainian usually expresses physical and emotional states with an impersonal construction:

• (комусь) + холодно / жарко / сумно / боляче …
  literally: “(to someone) it is cold / hot / sad / painful …”

So мені жарко literally means “it is hot to me”, i.e. I feel hot.

Saying я жаркий or я гарячий would sound wrong or very odd in this context:

• я гарячий – “I am hot (to the touch)” or even sexually “I’m hot”, not “I feel warm”.
• я жаркий – basically not used about a person like this.

Use мені жарко / мені холодно / мені весело / мені сумно to talk about how you feel.

What exactly is жарко here – an adjective, an adverb, or something else?

Жарко is a predicative adverb (also called a “category of state” word). Key points:

• It does not change for gender, number, or case.
• It is almost always used in the predicate of a sentence:
  • Жарко. – It’s hot.
  • Мені жарко. – I’m hot / I feel hot.
• You don’t use жарко to modify a noun. You don’t say жарка погода in Ukrainian; you say:
  • спекотна погода – hot weather
  • гаряча вода – hot water

So in the sentence, жарко functions as “is hot” in English.

Could I say Сьогодні мені спекотно в пальті instead of жарко? Is there a difference between жарко, спекотно, and гаряче?

You can say Сьогодні мені спекотно в пальті – it’s natural.

Nuance:

• жарко – “hot” as a felt temperature; very common in “I feel hot / it’s hot” statements.
• спекотно – “sweltering, very hot (weather-wise)”; often about the air / weather:
  • На вулиці спекотно. – It’s swelteringly hot outside.
• гаряче – “hot” in a more general sense (often about objects, food, water):
  • Мені гаряче can mean “I feel overheated / burning up (e.g. with fever)”.
  • Чай гарячий. – The tea is hot.

In your sentence all of these are possible, but:

• мені жарко в пальті – focuses on your feeling of being too warm in the coat.
• мені спекотно в пальті – subtly points more to the hot weather making the coat uncomfortable.

What case is в пальті, and why is it пальті and not пальто?

В пальті uses the locative case (місцевий відмінок):

• в / у + locative often expresses being in/on something:
  • в кімнаті – in the room
  • в місті – in the city
  • в пальті – in a coat

About the noun:

• The base form is пальто (a neuter noun borrowed from French).
• Traditionally, пальто was treated as indeclinable (same form in all cases).
• In modern Ukrainian, it is very common and acceptable to decline it:
  • Nom.: пальто
  • Gen.: пальта
  • Dat.: пальту
  • Acc.: пальто
  • Instr.: пальтом
  • Loc.: пальті

So в пальті is “in (a/the) coat” with locative singular, and that’s exactly what you want here. You may also encounter в пальто, but в пальті is extremely widespread and fully natural.

Why do we use в in в пальті and not some other preposition?

With clothing, Ukrainian typically uses в / у + locative to mean “wearing / in”:

• Я в куртці. – I’m in a jacket.
• Він у шапці. – He’s wearing a hat.
• Вона в сукні. – She’s in a dress.
• Мені жарко в пальті. – I’m hot in (my) coat.

Other prepositions would sound wrong here:

• на пальті – would mean “on the surface of the coat”, not that you’re wearing it.
• з пальтом – “with a coat” (in the sense “together with”), not “wearing it”.

In але без нього, what case is нього, and why do we say нього and not його?

Без (“without”) always takes the genitive case.
The personal pronoun for “it / he” in genitive has two forms:

• його – short (clitic) form
• нього – full form, used after prepositions

So the paradigm for the pronoun він / воно looks like:

• Nominative: він (he), воно (it)
• Genitive (no preposition): його
• Genitive (after preposition): без нього, у нього, від нього…

That’s why in your sentence you need:

• без нього – without it / without him

Using без його here would sound ungrammatical.

How do we know that нього refers to пальто? Does neuter also use нього?

Yes. The same set of forms is used for masculine and neuter “he / it” pronouns:

• Nominative:
  • masculine: він – he
  • neuter: воно – it
• Genitive after a preposition (for both):
  • нього

So без нього can mean “without him” or “without it”, depending on context.

In your sentence:

• The last neuter noun mentioned is пальто (via в пальті).
• So без нього naturally refers back to that: “without it (the coat)”.

Could we say але без пальта на вулиці небезпечно холодно instead of але без нього …? Would that change the meaning?

You can say:

• …але без пальта на вулиці небезпечно холодно.

This is also correct. Here пальта is genitive singular of пальто.

Difference:

• без нього – lighter and more natural in running speech; avoids repeating пальто.
• без пальта – slightly more explicit and concrete, emphasizing the coat itself again.

In meaning, both are essentially “but without the coat it’s dangerously cold outside.”

What does на вулиці literally mean, and why на, not у? Also, how would I say “go outside”?

На вулиці literally means “on the street”, but idiomatically it’s simply “outside”.

• на + locative is used for being on an open surface / in an open space:
  • на вулиці – outside, in the street
  • на площі – in the square
• у / в + locative is usually “inside” something:
  • в будинку – in the house
  • в кімнаті – in the room

So:

• на вулиці холодно. – It’s cold outside.

If you want to say “go outside”, you use direction:

• вийти на вулицю – to go out (onto the street / outside)
  • Я вийшов на вулицю. – I went outside.

What is небезпечно холодно grammatically? Is небезпечно an adverb here, and how is it different from just дуже холодно?

Yes, небезпечно here is an adverb (“dangerously”) modifying another adverb холодно (“cold”):

• небезпечно холодно – dangerously cold
  (so cold that it might be bad for your health)

Similar structure in English: “uncomfortably cold”, “terribly hot”, etc.

Compare:

• дуже холодно – very cold (just intensity)
• небезпечно холодно – cold to the point of being dangerous

So на вулиці небезпечно холодно is stronger than just “it’s very cold outside”; it suggests it could actually harm you.

Why is there no verb є (“is”) in на вулиці небезпечно холодно? Would adding it be wrong?

In the present tense, Ukrainian normally omits the verb бути (“to be”) in sentences of the type:

• [subject / location] + [predicate adjective/adverb]

Examples:

• На вулиці холодно. – It’s cold outside.
• Мені сумно. – I’m sad.
• Тут небезпечно. – It’s dangerous here.

So на вулиці небезпечно холодно naturally means “it is dangerously cold outside” with є understood but not said.

You could say …на вулиці є небезпечно холодно, but that sounds unusual and overly heavy; є is normally added only for contrast or special emphasis, not in a neutral statement like this.

How flexible is the word order in this sentence? Could I say Мені сьогодні жарко в пальті or На вулиці без нього небезпечно холодно?

Word order in Ukrainian is relatively flexible, and your variants are possible:

• Сьогодні мені жарко в пальті… – neutral, original order.
• Мені сьогодні жарко в пальті… – also fine; slightly more focus on мені (“I’m hot today in this coat”).
• Мені жарко сьогодні в пальті… – still acceptable; a bit more colloquial feel.

Second part:

• …але без нього на вулиці небезпечно холодно. – neutral.
• …але на вулиці без нього небезпечно холодно. – also correct; now the emphasis moves more to на вулиці (“outside, without it, it’s dangerously cold”).

In most everyday contexts these variants all mean the same thing; changes in word order mostly affect emphasis and rhythm, not basic grammar.