Word
Благодаря верности друзьям он сам никого не предаёт.
Meaning
Thanks to faithfulness to friends, he himself betrays no one.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Благодаря верности друзьям он сам никого не предаёт.
не
not
он
he / it (for a masculine noun) / it (for a neuter noun)
друг
friend
никто
nobody
Questions & Answers about Благодаря верности друзьям он сам никого не предаёт.
Why is it друзьям with a soft sign instead of the regular dative plural ending?
The noun друг (friend) has an irregular plural: друзья. In oblique cases, this irregularity continues by keeping a soft sign before the standard plural endings, except in the genitive/accusative which is друзей. So the dative plural becomes друзьям instead of the regular 'другам'. Other nouns like брат (братьям) and дерево (деревьям) follow this same pattern.
Why is the word for 'faithfulness' in the form верности?
The preposition Благодаря (thanks to) always requires the dative case. Верность is a feminine noun ending in a soft sign (a 3rd declension noun), and its dative form ends in -и, making it верности.
Why is друзьям in the dative case? Is it also because of Благодаря?
No, друзьям is in the dative case because of the noun верности. Just like in English you say 'loyalty TO someone', in Russian the noun верность (faithfulness/loyalty) takes the dative case for the recipient of that loyalty.
Why does the sentence use both никого and не?
Russian requires double negatives. When you use a negative pronoun like никого (the accusative form of никто, meaning 'no one'), you must also negate the verb with не. A literal translation would be 'he himself no one does not betray'.