Breakdown of Нам нравится этот красивый остров.
красивый
beautiful
этот
this [f: эта, n: это]
нам
to us
нравиться
to please / to appeal
остров
island
Questions & Answers about Нам нравится этот красивый остров.
Why do we use нам instead of мы for "We like"?
In Russian, the verb нравиться literally means "to be pleasing to." The person who likes something is put in the Dative case (нам means "to us"), and the thing being liked is the grammatical subject.
What case is этот красивый остров in?
It is in the Nominative case. Because нравится means "is pleasing to," the island is the grammatical subject doing the action, not the direct object.
Why is the verb нравится instead of нравятся?
The verb must match its subject, which is the island (остров). Since it is just one island, we use the singular form нравится. If we liked multiple islands, it would be the plural нравятся.
How would we change this to "We like this most beautiful island" using the superlative form from our current lesson?
You would add the word самый (the most) right before the adjective. Because остров is a masculine, Nominative noun, we use the matching form самый. The sentence becomes: Нам нравится этот самый красивый остров.
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