Breakdown of Нам пора начинать уборку, но мне лень это делать.
это
this / it is
делать
to do
мне
to me
нам
to us
Questions & Answers about Нам пора начинать уборку, но мне лень это делать.
Why are we using the Dative case for нам and мне instead of the Nominative мы and я?
This sentence uses impersonal state words: пора (it's time) and лень (too lazy). In Russian, when using these words to express a state or condition, the person experiencing it (the logical subject) must be in the Dative case.
Are пора and лень verbs here? They seem to be doing the job of a verb.
They are acting as the main predicates of the sentence, which is usually a verb's job. Grammatically, they are nouns (пора means 'time/season', лень means 'laziness'), but here they function as 'state categories.' They pair directly with an infinitive to express a state, requiring no 'to be' verb in the present tense.
Why is the imperfective verb начинать used after пора instead of the perfective начать?
The word пора almost always takes an imperfective infinitive. It carries the meaning of 'it is time to get started on the process.' Using the perfective начать here would sound unnatural to a native speaker.
What is the difference between saying мне лень это делать and я слишком ленивый?