Word
Следователь обвиняет его в краже.
Meaning
The investigator accuses him of theft.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Следователь обвиняет его в краже.
он
he / it (for a masculine noun) / it (for a neuter noun)
следователь
the investigator
обвинять
to accuse
в
of (in accusations, confessions, oaths)
Questions & Answers about Следователь обвиняет его в краже.
Why do we use в краже instead of the Genitive case for the English translation 'of theft'?
This is the core of this lesson! Verbs dealing with accusing, convincing, and suspecting, like обвинять, require the preposition в followed by the Prepositional case to state the charge. Because English uses 'of', learners often mistakenly try to use the Genitive case here. Just memorize the core pattern: обвинять кого-то в чём-то.
Are there other common verbs that follow this exact same pattern with в + Prepositional?
Yes, this is a distinct group of verbs. You will see this identical structure with убеждать (to convince), подозревать (to suspect), and признаваться (to confess). For example, 'to suspect him of murder' would be подозревать его в убийстве.
Doesn't the preposition в usually indicate physical location or direction?
It does for physical space, but Russian prepositions often serve purely grammatical roles when attached to certain verbs. With verbs of conviction and accusation, в completely loses its physical meaning. Instead of trying to translate it literally, treat обвинять в as a single grammatical formula.
Why do we use the Accusative case его instead of the Dative case for the person being accused?