Questions & Answers about Возраст — это не проблема.
Why is there a dash (—) and the word это instead of a word for "is"?
In Russian, the present tense of the verb "to be" (is/am/are) is usually skipped. When linking two nouns, like "Age" and "problem", Russian writers use a long dash to replace "is". The word это (this/it) is often added right after the dash to make the sentence flow better, so it literally reads as "Age — this is not a problem."
This lesson is about using the Dative case for age. Why is возраст in the Nominative (dictionary) case here?
You use the Dative case when expressing how old someone is (e.g., Мне 20 лет literally means "To me are 20 years"). But here, you aren't saying how old someone is. The word возраст (age) is just the main subject of the sentence doing the action (being not a problem). The subject of a sentence always takes the Nominative case.
Why is it не проблема instead of нет проблема?
Не means "not" and negates the specific word that follows it (not a problem). Нет means "no" (as the opposite of "yes") or is used to say that something doesn't exist ("there is no..."). Since you are describing what age is not, you use не.
Проблема is a feminine word. Why do we use the neuter word это here instead of эта?
In this sentence structure, это acts as a fixed pointer meaning "this is" or "that is." When used this way, it always stays in the neuter form это, regardless of the gender of the noun that comes after it. You would only use the feminine эта if it were an adjective describing the noun directly, like эта проблема (this specific problem).
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