Breakdown of Во-первых, не то чтобы актёр плохой, а весь фильм посредственный.
не
not
а
and (contrastive)
фильм
movie
плохой
bad
Questions & Answers about Во-первых, не то чтобы актёр плохой, а весь фильм посредственный.
How does the construction не то чтобы ..., а ... change the meaning compared to a simple negation?
Не то чтобы translates to 'not that' or 'it is not exactly that'. It softens the statement. Instead of a direct negation stating the actor is definitely not bad, the speaker is saying that the actor's performance isn't the main issue; rather, the whole film is mediocre. It mitigates the criticism of the actor by shifting the focus to a broader flaw.
Could we use но instead of а in this sentence?
No. The construction не то чтобы [A], а [B] structurally requires а. In Russian, а is used when contrasting two things where the second part corrects, redefines, or replaces the first part. Since you are correcting the assumption about what makes the movie bad, а is the only correct choice here.
Why does Во-первых have a hyphen and an -ых ending?
This is the standard formula for creating introductory sequence words like 'firstly', 'secondly', etc. You take an ordinal number like первый (first), add the prefix во- or в-, and use the plural ending -ых or -их. The hyphen is a strict spelling rule whenever you combine the в-/во- prefix with these specific endings.
What is the root meaning of the word посредственный (mediocre)?