Breakdown of Альпинистам нужно снаряжение, однако сегодня они лезут без него.
он
he / it (for a masculine noun) / it (for a neuter noun)
они
they
сегодня
today
нужно
it is necessary
без
without
однако
however
лезти
to climb / to crawl (unidirectional)
альпинист
mountaineer
снаряжение
equipment
Questions & Answers about Альпинистам нужно снаряжение, однако сегодня они лезут без него.
Why is лезут used here instead of the multidirectional лазят?
лезут is the unidirectional verb from the pair лезти/лазить. The word сегодня (today) shows they are currently engaged in a specific, single, ongoing climb in one direction. If we were talking about a general habit, like 'they usually climb without it', we would use the multidirectional лазят.
Why is the word for mountaineers in the dative case (Альпинистам) instead of the nominative?
To express that someone 'needs' something, Russian uses the short adjective нужен (and its forms). The person who needs something is placed in the Dative case, while the thing that is needed acts as the grammatical subject in the Nominative case.
Why is the neuter form нужно used in the first clause?
The short adjective нужно must agree in gender and number with the thing that is needed (the grammatical subject). Here, the needed item is снаряжение (equipment), which is a neuter noun, so we use the neuter form нужно.
Why is it без него instead of без его?
When third-person pronouns (like он, оно, она, они) immediately follow a preposition, Russian adds the letter н to the beginning of the pronoun to make it easier to pronounce. Since the preposition без requires the Genitive case, the normal Genitive pronoun его (for the neuter noun снаряжение) becomes него.
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