Breakdown of Гораздо легче отвлекать людей, чем показывать сложный трюк.
люди
people
показывать
to show
сложный
difficult, complex
лёгкий
easy, light
чем
than / the (in comparisons)
гораздо
much (with comparatives)
трюк
trick
отвлекать
to distract
Questions & Answers about Гораздо легче отвлекать людей, чем показывать сложный трюк.
The current lesson is about emphatic negators like 'далеко не'. How would I use that to say 'It is far from easy' in this context?
You would replace гораздо легче with далеко не легко. Notice that with далеко не, you use the base adverb (легко), whereas гораздо (much/far) is used to intensify comparatives (легче).
Why are both verbs, 'отвлекать' and 'показывать', in the imperfective aspect?
This sentence expresses a general truth or rule of thumb, not a single, specific event. In Russian, general statements about actions usually require the imperfective aspect. If you were talking about one specific magic trick you were about to perform right now, you would use the perfective pair: отвлечь and показать.
Could I drop 'чем' and just use the genitive case for the comparison here?
No, you must use чем. The genitive shortcut for comparatives only works when comparing nouns or pronouns (e.g., Он выше меня). Since you are comparing two verbs (отвлекать and показывать), чем is mandatory.
Why is it 'людей' and not a plural form of 'человек'?
Людей is the animate accusative plural form of человек (person), acting as the direct object of отвлекать. Russian uses the entirely different root люди (people) for the plural of person, only reverting to the genitive plural человек when counting with exact numbers like five or more.
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