Questions & Answers about Мне нужен словарь.
Why does this sentence use мне instead of я for "I"?
In English, you say "I need", where "I" is the subject doing the action. In Russian, the structure is flipped. It literally translates to "To me is necessary a dictionary." Because the state of need is happening to you, the word for "I" takes the dative case and becomes мне.
Is нужен a modal verb like хотеть (to want) or мочь (can)?
No, even though it expresses a similar idea of wanting or needing something, нужен is actually a short adjective, not a verb. It literally means "necessary" or "needed." Because it isn't a verb, you don't conjugate it for "I", "you", or "they" like you do with хотеть.
Wait, if мне isn't the subject of the sentence, does that mean словарь is?
Exactly! In this Russian structure, the thing you need (словарь) is the grammatical subject. It stays in the nominative case (the basic dictionary form), and the adjective нужен describes it.
How does нужен change if I need a different object?
Because it is an adjective, it has to match the gender and number of the thing you need. Словарь is a masculine noun, so we use the masculine form нужен. If you needed a feminine noun like машина (car), you would use the feminine form: Мне нужна машина. For neuter nouns it becomes нужно, and for plural objects it becomes нужны.
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