Breakdown of Нам было нечего делать за час до закрытия магазина.
мы
we
делать
to do
магазин
store, shop
час
hour
быть
to be
до
before, until
нечего
nothing (there is nothing to...)
за ... до
before (in 'за ... до ...')
закрытие
closing
Questions & Answers about Нам было нечего делать за час до закрытия магазина.
How does the phrase за час до закрытия express "an hour before closing"?
This uses the exact structure you are learning in this lesson: за + [amount of time in Accusative] + до + [the event in Genitive]. Here, час (hour) is in the accusative case (which looks identical to the nominative for inanimate masculine nouns), and закрытия is the genitive form of the neuter noun закрытие (closing).
Why does the sentence start with Нам (to us) instead of Мы (we)?
The phrase нечего делать (nothing to do) is an impersonal expression. In Russian, the person experiencing an impersonal state is put in the dative case. Instead of saying "We had nothing to do" with a direct subject, Russian phrases it as "To us, there was nothing to do" (Нам было нечего делать).
Why use нечего instead of ничего here?
Нечего (always stressed on the first syllable) is specifically used in impersonal sentences with an infinitive to mean "there is nothing to [do]". If you wanted to say "We didn't do anything" using a regular personal subject, you would use ничего along with the negative particle не: Мы ничего не делали.
Why is the past tense verb было in the neuter form?
Because this is an impersonal sentence, there is no grammatical subject (like "he", "she", or "the store") performing an action. In the past tense, Russian impersonal constructions always default to the neuter singular form of the verb "to be", which is было.
Why is магазина in the genitive case?
It shows possession or belonging, translating to "of the store". It directly follows закрытия (closing), which is already in the genitive case because of the preposition до. It is very common in Russian to chain genitive nouns together like this: до закрытия (before the closing) магазина (of the store).
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