Breakdown of Чтобы скрыть правду, фокусник должен отвлекать вас.
вы
you (plural)
правда
truth
должен
must, have to (должен, должна, должны)
чтобы
in order to
скрыть
to hide (conceal something)
фокусник
magician
отвлекать
to distract
Questions & Answers about Чтобы скрыть правду, фокусник должен отвлекать вас.
Why use the perfective скрыть but the imperfective отвлекать?
Скрыть (to hide) is perfective because it represents a specific, completed result—the ultimate goal. Отвлекать (to distract) is imperfective because it describes an ongoing process. The magician must maintain the continuous action of distracting you to achieve the one-time result of hiding the truth.
English just says "To hide..." so why do we need чтобы at the start of the sentence?
In English, you can express purpose just by starting with an infinitive. In Russian, you cannot drop the equivalent of "in order to." You must use чтобы + infinitive to show the purpose of the action in the main clause.
Why use должен here instead of надо or нужно?
Должен acts like an adjective and agrees with the masculine subject фокусник, describing what he specifically is obliged to do. If you used надо or нужно, the construction would become impersonal and require the dative case: фокуснику нужно отвлекать вас.
How would we apply the emphatic negations from this lesson to say the magician is "by no means obliged" to distract you?
You would add an intensifier like вовсе or отнюдь right before the negated phrase не должен. The second half of the sentence would become: ...фокусник отнюдь не должен отвлекать вас.
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