Questions & Answers about Из-за снега мы дрожали от холода.
Why do we use от холода here instead of из холода?
This is the core of our current lesson! We use от + Genitive for involuntary physical or emotional reactions. Shivering is an automatic bodily response to the cold. We only use из + Genitive when the cause is a conscious, deliberate motive, like doing something out of curiosity or respect.
Since both mean 'because of' or 'from', why does the sentence use из-за for the snow but от for the cold?
Russian distinguishes between different types of causes. We use из-за for external circumstances or obstacles (the snow is an outside event causing the overall situation). We use от for the direct, involuntary physical trigger of the shivering (the cold itself).
Why is the verb дрожали imperfective?
We use the imperfective aspect because 'shivering' was an ongoing, continuous process in the past. We are describing a state or background action that was happening at the time, not a single completed event.
Both снега and холода end in -а. What case is this and why?
They are both in the Genitive case. Conveniently, both of the prepositions из-за and от require the Genitive. Because снег and холод are both masculine nouns ending in a hard consonant, they take the exact same -а ending here.