Breakdown of Директору не удалось избежать скандала.
не
not
директор
director
удаться
to manage / to succeed (perfective)
избежать
to avoid
скандал
scandal
Questions & Answers about Директору не удалось избежать скандала.
Why is the verb удалось in the neuter form when директор is a masculine noun?
In this impersonal construction, директору is in the Dative case (the person to whom success didn't happen), not the Nominative case. Because there is no grammatical subject, past tense impersonal verbs like удаться always default to the neuter singular form ending in -ось.
Is не удалось the standard way to say "failed to" do something?
Yes! While you might know words for making mistakes, Russian typically expresses "failed to" or "didn't manage to" by negating удаться. Literally, this sentence says "To the director, avoiding a scandal was not successful."
Why is the word for scandal in the Genitive case (скандала) instead of the Accusative?
The verb избежать (to avoid) requires its object to be in the Genitive case. In Russian, verbs that involve avoiding, fearing, or depriving often take the Genitive because they imply a separation or a lack of the object.
Both удалось and избежать are perfective verbs. Why?
We use the perfective удалось because we are talking about the result of a single, specific event in the past. It is paired with the perfective infinitive избежать because the director's goal was to completely avoid the scandal (a finished, successful action), even though he didn't manage it.
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