Breakdown of Когда наступает зима, животным тяжело выживать.
зима
winter
когда
when
тяжело
hard / heavily
животное
the animal
Questions & Answers about Когда наступает зима, животным тяжело выживать.
The current lesson is about using the instrumental plural for seasons, like зимами. Could we rewrite this sentence to use зимами?
Yes, but you would have to drop the phrase когда наступает. The word зима here is the subject of the verb наступает, so it must be in the nominative case. To use the instrumental plural to mean 'during winters', you could simplify the entire sentence to: Зимами животным тяжело выживать.
Why is the verb наступает used for the arrival of winter? Could I use приходит?
While you will hear зима приходит (winter comes), наступает зима (winter sets in / arrives) is the standard, more natural-sounding collocation in Russian for the beginning of seasons, months, or times of day (like наступает ночь or наступает весна).
Why is the word for animals in the dative case (животным)?
This uses a very common impersonal construction. Instead of saying 'animals have a hard time', Russian expresses this as 'to the animals [it is] hard', using the dative case (животным) followed by the category of state word тяжело.
Why do we use the imperfective verb выживать here instead of the perfective выжить?
The sentence describes a general, recurring situation that happens every time winter arrives. The imperfective выживать emphasizes the ongoing process and continuous struggle of surviving during those periods, rather than a single, one-time completed action.