Breakdown of Мой брат не любит говорить о музыке.
брат
brother
не
not
музыка
music
мой
my / mine
говорить
to speak, to talk
любить
to love, to like
о
about (о, об, обо)
Questions & Answers about Мой брат не любит говорить о музыке.
Why does the word for music change to музыке at the end of this sentence?
The preposition о (meaning "about") always requires the noun that follows it to be in the Prepositional case. For feminine nouns ending in -а like музыка, the ending changes to -е. That is why it becomes о музыке.
Why do we use о here instead of об for the word "about"?
You use о before words that start with a consonant sound, like the м in музыке. You use об before words that start with a vowel sound (for example, об Антоне - about Anton). This makes pronunciation flow better, much like using "a" versus "an" in English.
Why is the verb говорить in its infinitive form instead of being conjugated?
When you combine two verbs to say someone "likes to do" something, only the first verb changes to match the subject. Here, любит is conjugated to match брат (he likes), and the second verb stays in its dictionary form, or infinitive: говорить (to talk).
Could I say моя брат instead of мой брат?
No, because possessive words like "my" must match the gender of the noun they describe. Брат (brother) is a masculine noun, so it takes the masculine form мой. If you were talking about a sister (сестра), you would use the feminine form моя.
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