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Questions & Answers about Снаружи очень холодно.
Why is there no word for "It" or "is" in this sentence?
In English, we use a dummy subject for weather and states, like "It is cold." Russian doesn't use dummy subjects. Instead, it uses an impersonal construction with just the state word холодно. The present tense "is" is naturally implied because Russian omits the verb "to be" in the present tense.
I usually say на улице for "outside". Can I use that instead of снаружи?
Yes, you can! На улице literally means "on the street" but is the most common way to talk about the weather outside. Снаружи focuses more specifically on "the exterior." Using снаружи here heavily emphasizes the physical contrast between being outdoors and being inside a warm building.
Why does холодно end in -о? Is it a neuter adjective here?
While it looks exactly like a neuter short adjective, in this impersonal sentence, холодно functions as an adverb of state. Because there is no noun or subject to agree with, it takes the default -о ending to express the general condition of the environment.
Would the sentence still make sense if I wrote Очень холодно снаружи?
Yes, it would still make perfect sense because Russian word order is flexible. However, Russian typically puts the known context at the beginning and the new or most important information at the end. Putting снаружи at the beginning sets the scene first, which sounds very natural in this context.