И самым безумным моим поступком - why instrumental case?

Question

So, I like to watch the Easy Languages videos whenever they get uploaded, and a new one came out yesturday. I can understand almost all the video, except the very beginning. This guy is explaining his most crazy thing that he has ever done, and he says this to start, "И самым безумным моим поступком является то, что..." This phrase makes no sense to me because a) Why the instrumental case? b) why use "является"? and c) Why "то, что" instead of just simply "что"? If someone could just explain this to me, that would be great!

Answer 1

Some Russian verbs need to be memorized as expressions requiring the adjective to be in a certain case, instrumental in this case after verbs являться, быть, становиться.

Secondly, являться is synonymous to быть, it interprets more as it happens to be.

lastly, the easiest way to understand Russian complex sentences with an attributive clause( the part “, что... “ ) is by interpreting as follows: The craziest thing i’ve done was the fact that... : the fact is то, that is что .

the word order is technically reversed here for intensive purposes, therefore instead of saying simply for example The jump out of a plane is the craziest thing I’ve done. It was reversed to derive to a complex

sentence: and the craziest thing I’ve done happens to be the fact that I jumped out of the plane/ or me jumping out of the plane. The use of gerunds and verbs derived nouns is preferred in English, whereas in Russian it is the use of attributing clause sentences.

Answer 2

You

 

TUTOR

 The main reason for the use of Instrumental case here is that the verb "является" is a synonym of "быть" ("is") - "the craziest thing I have ever done IS.." These verbs like "являться" "function as linking verbs and take a predicate noun (or adjective) in the Instrumental case" (see the highly recommended "Russian Grammar" by James S. Levine, p. 62)

Answer 3

So, let's take it step by step.

является - it can be translated as "is". являться has a few meanings. One of them is to appear. In religious texts, if a saint makes an appearance, it is said that он явился предо мною она явилась предо мною ( he or she showed themselves to me). This is an archaic usage and in modern speech it is rarely used. Another meaning is "to be". Это является первым случаем, когда человек провёл столько времени без еды и питья и выжил. This is the first ever case when a person survived so much time without food or water. In Russian we omit the forms of the verb "быть", but we can use the forms of являться. It has a slightly more official, bookish flavor to it.

After являться you need an object, expressed in a form of a noun or a preposition. то, что can be translated as "the fact that" which supplies the object in a form of "то".

Finally, after certain verbs in Russian, such as быть, являться, стать, работать you need to use instrumental case (Мой папа работает инжинером, а мама врачом. Я хочу стать художником. Я являюсь членом демократической партии.)

Hope that helps.