Impersonal sentences

After this page you will be able to say how you feel with мені́ хо́лодно and нам ве́село, talk about the weather, and say what you must or may do with тре́ба and мо́жна. You will recognise verbs like світа́є (it is getting light), sentences like Тут гово́рять украї́нською (Ukrainian is spoken here), and written forms like зачи́нено (closed).

Sentences without a subject

An English sentence almost always has a subject, even an empty one: it is cold, it is getting dark, they say. Ukrainian often has no subject at all. There is no word for the empty it, and the person who feels or needs something is not in the nominative. These are called impersonal sentences (безособо́ві ре́чення).

In the present tense, many of them have no verb either. In the past and future, the verb is in the neuter singular, whoever is involved: було́, бу́де, світа́ло.

Мені холодно: the dative and a word in -о

The most common pattern is a person in the dative plus a word in -о that describes a state. Literally, to me [it is] cold. The dative case introduced it; here are more examples.

The dictionary gives words like хо́лодно with the dative of the person who feels the state [src: goroh-dictionary]. Because there is no subject, було́ stays neuter even for a man or a group: Йому́ було́ ве́село, Нам було́ ве́село.

The weather

Without a person, the same words describe the weather or the surroundings.

Compare sentences about rain and snow. These do have a subject, дощ or сніг, in the nominative, and the verb agrees with it. Literally, rain goes and snow falls.

The last example shows the difference: ішо́в is masculine because дощ is masculine. In an impersonal sentence the past is always neuter, as in було́ хо́лодно.

Треба, можна, не можна: need and permission

Тре́ба (it is necessary) and мо́жна (it is allowed, it is possible) are followed by an infinitive. The person, if there is one, is in the dative. The dictionary labels мо́жна as a predicative word (присудко́ве сло́во) [src: goroh-dictionary].

Не мо́жна is written as two words and means “it is not allowed” [src: pravopys-2026, §44].

Слід (one should) works the same way: Вам слід відпочи́ти. (You should rest. Formal or plural: ви.) It sounds more formal. When you mean necessity, one usage guide recommends тре́ба as the stylistically better choice, and it marks the verb form слі́дує in this sense as an error [src: goroh-usage].

Немає with the genitive

Нема́є (there is no) is also impersonal. What is missing goes into the genitive, not the nominative. Negation covers this in detail.

Verbs with no subject

A few verbs describe nature or time and are used without a subject: світа́є (it is getting light), смерка́ється (it is getting dark), вечорі́є (evening is coming). They appear in the he/she/it form in the present and in the neuter in the past [src: goroh-dictionary].

Говорять українською: “people” with the they form

To talk about people in general, Ukrainian uses the they form of the verb with no pronoun. English uses they, people, one or the passive.

If you add вони́, the sentence is about particular people: Вони́ гово́рять украї́нською means “They (those people) speak Ukrainian”.

Зроблено, зачинено: forms in -но and -то

Formal and written Ukrainian has a verb form that ends in -но or -то and never changes: зро́блено (done), зачи́нено (closed), відчи́нено (open). It is made from a passive participle such as зро́блений (done, made) by replacing the ending with -о [src: goroh-usage]. Participles explains those adjectives.

A sentence with this form has no subject. The thing that the action affected is a direct object in the accusative [src: goroh-usage].

The usage note in the dictionary makes several points about these forms [src: goroh-usage]:

• They describe an action that has just happened. For an action further in the past, add було́; for the future, add бу́де.
• With не, the object can be in the genitive. The usage note mentions both cases; the orthography’s examples use the genitive: Пра́ці не закі́нчено (the work has not been finished) [src: pravopys-2026, §44].
• They are preferred for stressing the action. The note recommends the -но form over a passive participle when the action matters more than the resulting state. Passive participles stay natural as descriptions, especially before a noun.

Не is written separately before these forms: не зро́блено, не закі́нчено [src: pravopys-2026, §44].

Common mistakes and limits