Breakdown of Мне нужна сдача с десяти долларов, а здесь одни монеты.
здесь
here
а
and (contrastive)
я
I
десять
ten
с
with (also со)
нужен
needed (нужен, нужна, нужны)
доллар
dollar
монета
coin
одни
only / alone (pl.)
сдача
change (money)
Questions & Answers about Мне нужна сдача с десяти долларов, а здесь одни монеты.
Why does the sentence use одни for 'only' instead of the usual word только?
While только means 'only', using the plural form of 'one' (одни) before a noun is a very common Russian way to say 'nothing but' or 'solely'. It emphasizes that absolutely nothing else is present except coins. Because монеты (coins) is plural, the modifier must take the plural form одни.
Why is it нужна instead of нужно?
The word for 'need' (нужен) behaves like a short adjective and must agree in gender and number with the thing that is needed, not the person who needs it. Since the needed thing here is сдача (change), which is a feminine noun, the correct form is нужна.
Why do we use the preposition с for 'from' ten dollars, rather than от or из?
The preposition с paired with the genitive case is the standard idiom in Russian for expressing that you need change 'from' a certain bill or amount. You can imagine it as taking the change 'off' the top of the ten-dollar bill.
Why does десять change to десяти here?
Because the preposition с requires the genitive case, the number must decline to match. The number десять (ten) changes to its genitive form десяти, and the noun that follows it takes the genitive plural form, becoming долларов.
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