Breakdown of Вот бы вмиг исчезнуть и проснуться на острове!
и
and
на
on, at / by (transport) / to (a place) / to (in answer to)
остров
island
бы
would (conditional particle) / concessive particle
проснуться
to wake up (perfective)
вот бы
if only (in 'вот бы')
вмиг
instantly
исчезнуть
to disappear
Questions & Answers about Вот бы вмиг исчезнуть и проснуться на острове!
The lesson says Вот бы can take the past tense or the infinitive. Why use the infinitives исчезнуть and проснуться here instead of the past tense?
When making a wish about yourself, you can use the past tense (like Вот бы я исчез) or the infinitive (Вот бы исчезнуть). Using the infinitive is very common for spontaneous, dreamy desires, translating roughly to 'Oh, to disappear!' Notice that when you use the infinitive structure, you drop the subject pronoun (я).
Is вмиг a single word? I recognize the root миг (moment).
Yes, here it is the adverb вмиг, written as one word, meaning 'instantly' or 'in a flash'. It is formed from в + миг, but you should distinguish it from the two-word noun phrase в миг, which you would use if referring to a specific noun, like в тот миг (at that moment).
Both исчезнуть and проснуться are perfective verbs. Would it change the meaning to use imperfective verbs here?
Yes. With Вот бы, you usually use perfective verbs because you are wishing for a completed action or a final result: you want to be completely gone and already awake on the island. Using imperfective verbs (исчезать, просыпаться) would mean wishing to be in the ongoing process of disappearing or waking up, which doesn't fit this sudden fantasy.
Why do we use на instead of в before the island?
In Russian, islands (остров) always pair with the preposition на (on) rather than в (in) to indicate location. Because the verb проснуться (to wake up) implies a static location rather than movement toward a destination, we use the prepositional case form на острове.
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