Breakdown of Чтобы открыть счёт, нужен паспорт.
паспорт
passport
нужен
needed (short form)
чтобы
in order to
открыть счёт
to open an account
Questions & Answers about Чтобы открыть счёт, нужен паспорт.
Why is нужен used here instead of нужно or надо?
In Russian, when you need a physical object (like a passport), you use the short adjective нужен (meaning "is needed"). It must agree in gender and number with the thing that is needed, which acts as the grammatical subject. Since паспорт is a masculine noun in the nominative case, we use the masculine form нужен (literally: "a passport is needed"). You generally use нужно or надо when you need to perform an action (followed by a verb).
The English translation says "you need", but there is no word for "you" in the Russian sentence. How does that work?
This sentence is a general statement, meaning "for anyone to open an account, a passport is needed." Because it applies to people in general, Russian just leaves out the pronoun. If you wanted to specify that you (specifically) need a passport, you would add the dative pronoun вам (to you) or тебе to the main clause: Чтобы открыть счёт, вам нужен паспорт.
Why do we use the perfective verb открыть instead of the imperfective открывать?
We use the perfective открыть because opening a bank account here is viewed as a single, completed action with a concrete result. You do it once to establish the account. If you were talking about the regular, repeating process of opening accounts, you would use the imperfective открывать.
Could I use для instead of чтобы to mean "in order to"?