Unit 6: Visiting friends 85
(b) After certain Russian verbs, like помога�ть ‘to help’; сове�товaть
‘to advise’, the dative is used in Russian although they take a direct
object in English: Са�ша сове�тует Пи�теру ‘Sasha advises Peter’;
Oн помога�ет Тама�ре ‘He helps Tamara’.
(c) The dative case is used after the prepositions к and пo. Both these
prepositions have a variety of meanings.
К ‘towards’; ‘to (the house of)’; ‘by (in expressions of time)’; ‘to
(in certain specific expressions)’: Oн идёт к до�му ‘He walks
towards the house’; Oн идёт в го�сти к Cа�шe ‘He is paying a
visit to Sasha’s house’; к утру� ‘by morning’.
По ‘along’; ‘through’; ‘according to’; ‘by’: пo доро�ге ‘along the way’;
прогу�лка пo ле�сy ‘a walk through the forest’; Тама�ра пo
профе�ссии – инжене�р ‘Tamara is an engineer by profession’.
(d) The dative can be combined with impersonal expressions formed
from adjectives such as тpу�дно ‘it is difficult’: Пи�теру тру�дно ‘It is
difficult for Peter’.
It can also be used with expressions such as на�до ‘it is neces-
sary’: Пи�теру на�до встава�ть ‘It is necessary for Peter to get up/
Peter has to get up’.
(e) The dative can be combined with certain reflexive verbs.
Нра�виться ‘to like’:
Пи�теру нра�вится Москва� ‘Peter likes Moscow’ (lit. ‘Moscow
is pleasing to Peter’). ‘Moscow’, the object of the sentence in
English, is the subject in Russian, and ‘Peter’, the subject of the
English sentence, goes into the dative. In the following exam-
ple, нра�виться occurs in the plural to agree with the subject
грибы� ‘mushrooms’: мне нра�вятся грибы� ‘I like mushrooms’
(lit. ‘mushrooms are pleasing to me’).
Нра�вится can also be followed by an infinitive: мне нра�вится
лови�ть ры�бу ‘I like to fish’.
(f) The short adjective ну�жeн, нужна�, ну�жно, нужны� is used with
the dative to translate ‘to need’: Ей ну�жен све�жий во�здух ‘She
needs fresh air’ (lit. ‘fresh air is necessary to her’); Пи�теру нужна�
по�мощь ‘Peter needs help’; И�рочке нужны� ту�фли ‘Irochka
needs shoes’; Мне ну�жно молоко� ‘I need milk’.
(g) The dative is used to express age: И�рочке (dative) три го�да
‘Irochka is three’ (lit. ‘to Irochka three years’); Мне два�дцать
четы�ре го�да ‘I am 24’.