Breakdown of Ему нравится весна, а не лето.
не
not
он
he / it (for a masculine noun) / it (for a neuter noun)
а
and (contrastive)
нравиться
to please / to appeal
весна
spring
лето
summer
Questions & Answers about Ему нравится весна, а не лето.
Why does the sentence start with Ему instead of Он?
In Russian, to express likes, we literally say that something is pleasing to someone. Ему is the 'to him' form (Dative case) of он (he).
What case are весна (spring) and лето (summer) in here?
They are both in the Nominative case (the basic dictionary form). In Russian 'like' sentences, the thing you like is actually the grammatical subject of the sentence because it is doing the 'pleasing'.
Since two seasons are mentioned, why do we use the singular нравится instead of the plural нравятся?
Even though two seasons are in the sentence, he only actually likes one of them (весна). Because весна is a singular word, it takes the singular verb нравится. If he liked both ('spring and summer'), you would use the plural нравятся.
Why use а here instead of но?
While both can translate as 'but', а is used to show contrast or set two things against each other. The specific combination а не is the standard Russian way to say 'and not' or 'rather than' when contrasting two things.
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