Breakdown of Этот бюджет не был одобрен в 2023 году.
не
not
этот
this [f: эта, n: это]
год
year
быть
to be
в
on / during (a time period)
бюджет
budget
одобрить
to approve (perfective: endorse, express a favorable opinion)
Questions & Answers about Этот бюджет не был одобрен в 2023 году.
Why does this sentence use не был одобрен instead of a reflexive verb with a passive meaning, like не одобрялся?
Using a short-form past passive participle like одобрен creates a formal register, which is highly typical for official, business, or journalistic Russian. While reflexive verbs can also form the passive voice, they usually use imperfective verbs to describe an ongoing process. Here, the perfective participle highlights the final, official result.
How do the words был одобрен match the rest of the sentence?
In Russian passive constructions, both the auxiliary verb (был) and the short-form participle (одобрен) must agree with the subject in gender and number. Because бюджет is a masculine singular noun, we use the masculine forms for both. If the subject were a feminine noun, it would be была одобрена.
How do you read в 2023 году out loud, and why does it take that form?
It is pronounced в две тысячи двадцать третьем году. When stating the year an event happened, Russian uses the prepositional case. For compound numbers in years, only the very last number becomes an ordinal adjective and changes case (третьем), while the earlier numbers (две тысячи двадцать) stay in their base cardinal forms.
What happens to the meaning if we remove the word был?
Removing был changes the sentence to the present tense: Этот бюджет не одобрен means 'This budget is not approved' (describing its current official status). The short-form participle on its own acts as the present tense; you need to add был to shift that state into the past.
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