Breakdown of Жюри очень нравится этот десерт.
этот
this [f: эта, n: это]
очень
very
нравиться
to please / to appeal
десерт
dessert
жюри
jury
Questions & Answers about Жюри очень нравится этот десерт.
Wait, if the jury is doing the liking, why are they in the Dative case?
The verb нравиться (to like) works differently than its English translation. It literally means "to be pleasing to". So, the sentence is structured more like "This dessert is pleasing to the jury." The person or group experiencing the feeling (the jury) must take the Dative case.
If жюри is in the Dative case, why hasn't its ending changed?
Жюри is a borrowed foreign word. In Russian, many nouns borrowed from other languages that end in vowels (like метро, кофе, or жюри) are indeclinable. This means they never change their endings, no matter what grammatical case they are in.
Is этот десерт in the Accusative case since it's the thing being liked?
Actually, no! Because нравится really means "is pleasing," the thing being liked is the grammatical subject of the sentence, which means it has to be in the Nominative case. For inanimate masculine nouns like десерт, the Nominative and Accusative forms look identical, but grammatically it is Nominative here.
If этот десерт is the grammatical subject, why is it at the end of the sentence?
Russian word order is flexible and focuses on the flow of information. It is very standard to put the Dative "experiencer" (жюри) at the beginning of the sentence and the subject (этот десерт) at the end when using verbs like нравиться.
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