"We need to wash the forks."
Translation:Нам надо помыть вилки.
14 Comments
What about мыть? I've read that there's often flexibility in choice of aspect when it's in the infinitive. (i.e. мыть - 'spend some time washing forks' vs. помыть 'wash these forks & finish washing them').
You have нужен (m), нужна (f), нужно (n) and нужны (pl) matching gender and numerus of the subject. Here we have to use the neuter form, because нам нужно (note: 'we' in the dative case) translates to 'it is needful to us that ..." and the neutral 'it' is the so called formal subject.
I swapped the last two words, вилки помыть, shouldn't this also be accepted?
Is Надо нам also correct, or does it have to be Нам надо? I've seen надо мне before, so how do I know if надо has to come second?
If there is no particular context, it's better to use "Нам надо" though reversing the words is also possible gramatically.
Thanks! Does that apply to other pronouns, e.g. should I say мне надо instead of надо мне?
Should надо нам be an accepted answer or would it sound odd enough that it's OK to mark it as wrong?
Yes, this applies to all other pronouns. You can use "Надо нам..." when there is a necessity to do something, but you're not fond of it: "Надо нам и вилки, и ножи помыть, а так не хочется..." "We need to cleans both forks and knives, but ~(we don't want it so much)". "Так не хочется" is an impersonal construction, btw, and I couldn't think of a really good analog in English. :)
If it's for something you don't really like very much, then for washing dishes I definitely should use Надо нам :-) Thanks for the explanation.
What's the difference between нужно, надо and должен please ? And how do they decline ?
