Breakdown of Ему повезло: билеты ещё были.
он
he / it (for a masculine noun) / it (for a neuter noun)
билет
ticket
быть
to be
ещё
still, more
повезти
to be lucky (мне повезло — impersonal)
Questions & Answers about Ему повезло: билеты ещё были.
Why is the sentence built as Ему повезло instead of using the nominative Он?
The verb повезти (to be lucky) requires an impersonal construction. Instead of saying 'he was lucky', Russian literally expresses 'it was lucky to him'. The person experiencing the luck is placed in the Dative case (ему), and the verb takes the impersonal neuter singular form (повезло). This strictly matches the Dative experiencer pattern you are currently learning with state words like лень and пора.
Is повезло perfective or imperfective, and why does it matter here?
It is perfective. It refers to a single, successful stroke of luck with a clear result: he managed to get the tickets this specific time. If the sentence used the imperfective везло, it would mean he was generally or continuously lucky over a longer period, rather than just in this one specific instance.
Why use a colon instead of a comma before билеты?
In Russian punctuation, a colon is often used between two independent clauses when the second clause explains or provides the exact reason for the first one. The fact that the tickets were still there is the direct explanation for his luck. You can mentally replace this colon with потому что (because).
Can ещё mean 'more' in this sentence, as in 'there were more tickets'?
While ещё can mean 'more' in other contexts, here it acts as an adverb of time meaning 'still'. The context of his luck relies on the tickets still being available when he arrived, presumably right before they sold out. To unambiguously say 'there were more tickets', you would normally shift the word order or use an adjective like дополнительные (additional).
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