Breakdown of Братья мстят соседу, потому что он угрожает им.
брат
brother
он
he / it (for a masculine noun) / it (for a neuter noun)
они
they
потому что
because
Questions & Answers about Братья мстят соседу, потому что он угрожает им.
Why do we use the dative case for соседу and им without any prepositions?
This is the core of verb government for these specific actions! Both мстить (to take revenge on) and угрожать (to threaten) require the dative case for the person receiving the action. Unlike English, which relies on prepositions like 'on' to express this, Russian connects these verbs directly to the dative objects соседу and им.
What is the infinitive of мстят?
The infinitive is мстить (to take revenge). It is a second conjugation verb. While the 'they' form is мстят, watch out for the 'I' form, which has a consonant mutation: я мщу.
The English translation says 'threatened', so why is угрожает in the present tense?
Угрожает is indeed the present tense (he threatens or is threatening). The provided English translation uses the past tense to sound natural in its specific context, but the Russian sentence describes an ongoing, present reality. If you wanted to strictly say 'threatened' in the past, you would use угрожал.
Just to refresh, why is the plural of брат written as братья instead of браты?
Брат is one of a handful of common masculine nouns that form an irregular plural with a soft sign plus -я. You have likely seen this pattern before with words like стул (стулья) and муж (мужья).