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После третьей попытки учёному удалось доказать свою теорию.

После третьей попытки учёному удалось доказать свою теорию.
After the third attempt, the scientist managed to prove his theory.
From Lesson 245:Impersonal verbs of success (удаваться / удаться)·Russian

Questions & Answers about После третьей попытки учёному удалось доказать свою теорию.

Why is the verb удалось in the neuter past tense form, even though the scientist is a man?
The verb удаться (to manage / to succeed) is an impersonal verb. This means the sentence has no grammatical subject performing the action. When there is no grammatical subject, past tense verbs default to the neuter singular form, which is why we see удалось.
Why is "the scientist" translated as учёному in the Dative case?
In Russian, you don't say "I managed." Instead, the construction works more like "It succeeded to me." The person who achieves the success must be in the Dative case when using the verb удаваться / удаться. Here, учёному is the Dative receiver of the success.
Wait, isn't учёный an adjective? Why is it acting as a noun here?
Учёный is a word that started as an adjective (meaning "learned" or "educated") but is now commonly used as a noun meaning "scientist" or "scholar." Even though it acts as a noun, it still uses adjective endings, which is why its Dative form is учёному instead of taking a standard noun ending.
Why do we use свою instead of его for "his" theory?
In Russian, when the object belongs to the main actor of the sentence, you must use the reflexive possessive pronoun свой (one's own). Even though учёному is grammatically in the Dative case, he is the logical actor doing the proving. If you used его, it would sound like he proved some other man's theory! We use the feminine Accusative form свою to match теорию.
Why is "third" translated as третьей with a soft ending here?
The ordinal number третий (third) is a special case in Russian because it has soft endings, unlike regular numbers like первый or второй. The preposition после requires the Genitive case. Since попытка (attempt) is feminine, the soft feminine Genitive ending for "third" is третьей.

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