Breakdown of Он боится провалиться, невзирая на опыт.
он
he / it (for a masculine noun) / it (for a neuter noun)
бояться
to be afraid
опыт
experience
невзирая на
regardless of
провалиться
to bomb
Questions & Answers about Он боится провалиться, невзирая на опыт.
The lesson mentions both несмотря на and невзирая на. Is there any difference in meaning or usage between them?
They both mean 'despite' or 'regardless of' and both require the accusative case (which is why опыт does not change its ending here, as it is an inanimate masculine noun). However, невзирая на is slightly more formal and emphatic than несмотря на. You will often see it in literature, journalism, or when emphasizing a strong contrast.
I know провалиться literally means 'to fall through.' How does it translate to 'bombing' or 'failing' here?
In Russian, провалиться is commonly used figuratively to mean failing miserably at a task, exam, or performance (just like 'bombing' a test or an audition in English). If you want to say someone failed an exam, you can say он провалил экзамен, and if a project failed completely, you would say проект провалился.
I remember learning that the verb бояться (to be afraid) takes the genitive case. Why isn't there a genitive noun here?
The verb бояться requires the genitive case when you are afraid of a noun (like Он боится собак for 'He is afraid of dogs'). But when you are afraid of doing an action, you simply attach the infinitive directly. Here, he is afraid of the action провалиться, so no genitive noun is needed.
Why is невзирая written as a single word? Isn't не usually separated from gerunds (verbal adverbs)?
Normally, yes! The negative particle не is written separately from gerunds. However, невзирая на and несмотря на have frozen into prepositions meaning 'despite'. Because their grammatical role changed from a literal action ('not gazing at') to a set prepositional phrase, the не permanently fused onto the word.
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