Breakdown of Мой брат часто мне помогает.
брат
brother
мой
my (мой, моя, моё) / mine
часто
often
мне
to me
помогать
to help
Questions & Answers about Мой брат часто мне помогает.
Why does this sentence use мне instead of меня for "me"?
In English, we just say "helps me". But in Russian, the verb помогать (to help) always requires the Dative case. You can think of it as giving your help to someone. Therefore, the pronoun я (I) changes to its Dative form, мне.
Why is мне before the verb помогает?
Russian word order is very flexible! While you can absolutely say Мой брат часто помогает мне (which matches English word order), it is very common and natural in Russian to place short pronoun objects right before the verb.
How do we know to use the -ет ending on помогает?
The verb must match the subject doing the action. The subject here is мой брат (my brother), which is a "he" (он). The verb помогать (to help) is a regular verb, so for он (he), we drop the -ть from the dictionary form and add -ет.
Does мой change if it's my sister helping me instead?
Yes! Мой (my) is masculine to match the masculine noun брат. If your sister was helping you, you would use the feminine form моя and say Моя сестра часто мне помогает.
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