Breakdown of Он рассказал нам много сказок.
он
he / it (for a masculine noun) / it (for a neuter noun)
много
a lot
нам
to us
рассказать
to tell (perfective)
сказка
fairy tale
Questions & Answers about Он рассказал нам много сказок.
Why does the word for fairy tales change from сказка to сказок? Shouldn't we just drop the -а?
Yes, to form the genitive plural you drop the -а, which leaves the stem сказк. However, Russian avoids ending words with awkward consonant clusters like -зк. To make it easier to pronounce, a fleeting vowel (usually о or е) is inserted between the last two consonants. Here, we add о, making it сказок.
Why is сказок in the genitive plural case?
It follows the word много (a lot). In Russian, words that express quantity like много, мало (few/little), and сколько (how many) must be followed by the genitive case. Since there are multiple fairy tales, we use the genitive plural.
Why do we use нам instead of нас for us?
The verb рассказать (to tell) requires the dative case for the person receiving the information or story. Нам is the dative form of мы (we), literally meaning to us. Нас is the accusative or genitive form, which you would only use here if he were telling a story about us!
Why is the verb рассказать perfective here instead of imperfective?
We use the perfective past tense рассказал because it describes a completed action with a clear result on a specific occasion. If the sentence meant he used to tell us fairy tales regularly over a period of time, we would use the imperfective form рассказывал.
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