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Questions & Answers about Нам пощастило.
What does Нам пощастило sound like in natural English?
The most natural translations are:
- We got lucky.
- We were lucky.
- We were fortunate.
Very often it refers to a specific situation or outcome, not a general personality trait. So it usually means something like luck was on our side in that situation.
Why is it нам, not ми?
Because Ukrainian uses a different structure here from English.
- ми = we as a subject
- нам = to us / for us in the dative case
In Нам пощастило, the idea is closer to:
- Luck happened to us
- It turned out luckily for us
So нам marks the people who experienced the luck, not the grammatical subject in the usual English sense.
What case is нам?