Breakdown of Нам нужно успеть сдать проект завтра.
завтра
tomorrow
нам
to us
проект
the project
нужно
it is necessary
сдать
to hand in
успеть
to manage
Questions & Answers about Нам нужно успеть сдать проект завтра.
Why does the sentence start with нам instead of мы?
In Russian, expressing need or obligation with нужно (or надо) uses an impersonal structure. The person who needs to do something is put in the Dative case, so мы (we) becomes нам (to us). It literally translates to 'To us it is necessary...'
Are you allowed to put two infinitives in a row like успеть сдать?
Yes! Just like in English ('manage to hand in'), Russian lets you chain infinitives. The word нужно triggers the first infinitive (успеть), and the verb успеть naturally takes a second infinitive (сдать) to explain exactly what you are managing to do in time.
Why are успеть and сдать both in the perfective aspect?
We use perfective verbs here because we are talking about a specific, one-time action with a clear result: successfully finishing and submitting the project завтра (tomorrow). If this were a repeated habit, you would use imperfective verbs instead.
Is the word проект in the Nominative case here since it hasn't changed its ending?
It is actually in the Accusative case, because it is the direct object of the verb сдать (to hand in the project). However, for masculine inanimate nouns like проект, the Accusative form looks exactly identical to the Nominative dictionary form.
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