Breakdown of Нам нравится не только участвовать, но и одерживать победы.
мы
we
нравиться
to please / to appeal
участвовать
to take part, to participate
победа
victory
не только ..., но и
not only ... but also
одерживать
to achieve (a victory, imperfective)
Questions & Answers about Нам нравится не только участвовать, но и одерживать победы.
The translation says to achieve victories, using одерживать победы. Why not just use the simple verb побеждать?
Both mean to win, but одерживать победу (or plural победы) is a formal analytical predicate—a combination of a light verb (одерживать) and a noun. It sounds more emphatic and literary than the simple verb побеждать. You will often see this construction in journalism, sports commentary, or formal writing.
We recently learned the formal phrase принимать участие. Could we use that here instead of the simple verb участвовать?
Yes, you absolutely could say не только принимать участие, но и одерживать победы. Doing so would make the sentence stylistically perfectly balanced, as you would be pairing two formal noun-verb collocations. However, using the simple verb участвовать for the first half is also perfectly natural here and slightly less formal.
Is there a specific rule for using the не только ..., но и ... structure in a sentence like this?
Yes, this correlative conjunction means not only..., but also..., and it requires strict grammatical symmetry. The word or phrase immediately following не только must match the grammatical role of the word or phrase following но и. In this sentence, the structure perfectly balances two infinitive verbs: участвовать and одерживать.
Why are both участвовать and одерживать in the imperfective aspect?
The verb нравится (to like) strongly prefers an imperfective infinitive. This is because liking an action focuses on enjoying the ongoing process or a repeated habit, rather than a one-time completed result. Even though a victory is a discrete event, enjoying the general act of winning requires the imperfective одерживать rather than the perfective одержать.
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