Breakdown of Благодаря холодной воде я не обжёгся.
не
not
вода
water
я
I
холодный
cold
благодаря
thanks to
обжечься
to burn oneself
Questions & Answers about Благодаря холодной воде я не обжёгся.
Why is холодной воде in the Dative case here?
The word благодаря (thanks to) acts as a preposition that always requires the Dative case. So, the nominative холодная вода becomes холодной воде.
Благодаря looks like a verb form. Is it?
It comes from the verb благодарить (to thank) and historically meant "thanking". However, in modern Russian it is used as a set preposition meaning "thanks to". Note that while the verb благодарить takes the Accusative case for the person you are thanking, the preposition благодаря takes the Dative case for the thing or person that helped you.
Since there is a negation (не), why is the verb обжёгся perfective instead of imperfective?
Negation often uses the imperfective to show an action simply didn't happen. However, just like in negative warnings where you want to prevent a bad outcome (which your current lesson covers), the perfective aspect is used here to focus on a specific, one-time result. Я не обжёгся emphasizes that you successfully avoided the specific result of getting burned on this single occasion.
What is the infinitive of обжёгся, and why does the past tense look so unusual?
The infinitive is обжечься (to burn oneself). Verbs that end in -чь have irregular past tense forms. For masculine subjects, the stem changes to end in a consonant, giving us обжёгся. For a feminine speaker, it would be обожглась.
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