Breakdown of Он никого не хотел обижать.
не
not
он
he / it (for a masculine noun) / it (for a neuter noun)
хотеть
to want
никто
nobody
Questions & Answers about Он никого не хотел обижать.
The current lesson is about reflexive emotion verbs, like обижаться (to be offended). Why isn't обижать reflexive here?
The reflexive suffix -ся often indicates that an action happens to the subject or is an internal feeling. Обижаться means "to take offense" or "to feel offended". In this sentence, the subject isn't the one feeling offended; he is directing the action at other people. Therefore, we use the active, non-reflexive verb обижать (to offend).
Why does the sentence use both никого (nobody) and не (not)?
Russian requires double negation! Whenever you use a negative pronoun like никто (nobody) or ничто (nothing) in any of its case forms, you must also put не before the verb. It literally translates as "He nobody not wanted to offend," which just means "He didn't want to offend anyone" in English.
Why is it никого and not никто?
Никого is the Accusative case form of никто. The verb обижать takes a direct object in the Accusative case because you are offending someone. Since "nobody" refers to people (it is animate), its Accusative form looks exactly like its Genitive form: никого.
Why do we use the imperfective verb обижать instead of the perfective обидеть?
After negated verbs of desire like не хотел (did not want), Russian strongly prefers the imperfective aspect. Using the imperfective обижать emphasizes that he didn't want to engage in the behavior of offending people at all, rather than focusing on one specific event or result.