Breakdown of Из-за дождя рабочий катит бочку по гладкому асфальту на склад.
дождь
rain
на
on, at / by (transport) / to (a place) / to (in answer to)
по
along, around
рабочий
worker
Questions & Answers about Из-за дождя рабочий катит бочку по гладкому асфальту на склад.
Why do we use катит here instead of катает?
Катит is the unidirectional (one-way) transitive verb of motion for rolling. It tells us the worker is rolling the barrel in one specific direction right now—towards the warehouse. If he were rolling it around aimlessly, or making multiple trips back and forth, we would use the multidirectional verb катает.
Why is it на склад instead of в склад for "to the warehouse"?
The word склад (warehouse) is one of those traditional locations in Russian that pairs with the preposition на rather than в. Just like you go на завод (to the factory) or на почту (to the post office), you go на склад. Because it indicates the destination of a motion, it takes the accusative case here.
Why do we say по гладкому асфальту to mean "along the smooth asphalt"?
The preposition по followed by the dative case is commonly used to describe motion along, across, or over a surface. While in English we might simply say we are rolling something "on" the asphalt, Russian uses по to emphasize the trajectory of the movement across that continuous surface.
Could I use благодаря instead of из-за to mean "because of the rain"?
It would sound very strange here. While both can mean "because of," из-за (followed by the genitive case) is used for negative or inconvenient causes—like rain forcing the worker to hurry. Благодаря (followed by the dative case) means "thanks to" and is strictly reserved for positive causes.