Breakdown of Брату лень гладить рубашку к утру.
брат
brother
рубашка
the shirt
утро
morning
к
by (a deadline)
лень
too lazy
гладить
to iron
Questions & Answers about Брату лень гладить рубашку к утру.
Why is the subject брату in the dative case?
This sentence uses an impersonal construction. Words expressing a state of mind or readiness, like лень (too lazy to), пора (time to), and жаль (a pity), don't take a standard nominative subject. Instead, the person experiencing the state is put in the dative case.
Why use the imperfective verb гладить instead of the perfective погладить here?
When expressing a reluctance or lack of desire to do an action (using words like лень or не хочется), Russian strongly prefers the imperfective aspect. The focus is on the brother wanting to avoid the tedious process of ironing itself, rather than the completion of the result.
How does к утру express "by morning"?
The preposition к paired with the dative case is used to set a time deadline. While к often means "towards" a physical location, in time expressions like к утру or к пяти часам, it means the action must be completed "by" that time.
How would you change this sentence to say the brother was too lazy?
Because лень acts as an unchanging state word here (a predicative) rather than a verb, it can't take past tense endings on its own. To move this into the past, you add the neuter past-tense helper verb было: Брату было лень гладить рубашку к утру.
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