How might you say 'of [verb]ing' in Russian?

Question

eg his dream of going to America.

My initial idea was:

его мечта того, что он идёт в Америку

but that seems a little clunky.

Any better ways to do it? Do you use this construction?

Also, one other question - how do you translate 'for' in the sense of 'It becomes easier for the main character to carry out his task.' I honestly couldn't think what preposition/case you might use.

Thanks for any help going :)

Answer 1

his dream of going to America

There are two basic options.

• Convert it to a noun phrase, like what Limbgen suggested. This is similar to what would be "dream of a trip to America":

  eго мечта о поездке в Америку

  Note it uses the Prepositional case; a more literal equivalent would be "dream about a trip..."

• Use a perfective infinitive. This is actually more common:

  его мечта поехать в Америку

  Here you often have the ability to apply nuances by choosing the right variety of the same word, e.g. "уехать в Америку" (leave for good) or "выехать в Америку" (leave this country for America), "приехать" (to come to America), etc.

It becomes easier for the main character to carry out his task

Use the Dative case:

Главному герою становится проще...

This is precisely one of the semantic roles of Dative in Russian: "для героя" (a literal translation of "for the character"; note "для" itself requires Genitive) is generally equivalent to just "герою" (Dative). Both are grammatically correct and can be used, but the Dative form is often (but not always) preferable.

Answer 2

Assuming мечта is in the nominative case, I would translate it as:

Его мечта о поездке в Америку.

As for the second question:

It becomes easier for the main character to carry out his task - Главному герою становится проще выполнять свою задачу.

It's a slight rephrase, but in my opinion a direct translation would look too clumsy here, the semantics in this rephrase are preserved.