English Translation
That was mine.
Can someone comment on the case of мой here?
It’s the neuter singular instrumental, used because the verb is in the past.
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why would you use that case for a sentence that just says X is/was Y? SHouldn’t it just be Это было моё?
I’m not a native Russian speaker, but I did a Google search for “use of instrumental vs nominative in the past in Russian”. This pointed me to two useful links, one on Stack Exchange and one on Reddit. From what I understand, the use of the nominative with the non-present (that is, past or future) indicates a permanent condition and is less common than the use of the instrumental, which indicates a temporary condition.
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Thanks! (adding characters for length)
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