Breakdown of Я хочу прочитать этот текст, потому что он интересный, но трудный.
он
he / it (for a masculine noun) / it (for a neuter noun)
я
I
интересный
interesting
текст
text
этот
this [f: эта, n: это]
потому что
because
хотеть
to want
трудный
difficult
прочитать
to read (perfective)
но
but
Questions & Answers about Я хочу прочитать этот текст, потому что он интересный, но трудный.
Why do we use потому что instead of поэтому here?
Потому что means 'because' and gives the reason for an action. You use it to explain why you want to read the text. Поэтому means 'therefore' or 'that is why' and shows the result. If the sentence was 'The text is interesting, so I want to read it', you would use поэтому.
Could I use почему instead of потому что in this sentence?
No. Even though both relate to the concept of 'why', почему is a question word used to ask 'why?'. When you are giving a reason or saying 'because', you must always use потому что.
The translation says 'it is interesting', so why does the Russian sentence use он?
In Russian, the pronoun has to match the gender of the noun it replaces. The word текст (text) is a masculine noun. Therefore, you must use the masculine pronoun он, even though in English we say 'it' for inanimate objects.
Why does но connect two adjectives (интересный and трудный) here instead of two whole sentences?
The conjunction но (but) is very flexible. It can connect two full sentences, but it can also connect two contrasting words in the same sentence. Here, it simply contrasts the positive quality of the text (интересный) with the challenging one (трудный).
Why didn't the phrase этот текст change its ending, since it is the object of the verb?
It actually is in the accusative case because it receives the action of reading! However, for masculine nouns that are inanimate (not alive), the accusative case looks exactly the same as the nominative dictionary form.
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