Neutral Form "Было солнечно"

Just doing more of the fateful Rosetta Stone and came across this. The sentence was "We were at the beach it was sunny" Мы были на пляже. Было солнечно. (if that is correct as I'm not on it now)

What confused me was how Было was used although in my mind солнечно is an adverb. Every word I could think to describe what "IT" was, such as day/weather, were female/male nouns (non-neutral). Maybe это is being used to describe "IT" but I am unsure.

Another example which confused me was when I asked a Russian native to say "Because I need to learn Russian" which she replied; Потему что мне нужно учить русский язык (I would of assumed Нужен would be used as язык is the nominative male noun which this verb conforms to.

Cheers for your help.

it's correct, i suggest to read up about Impersonal sentences in Russian

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...Another example which confused me was when I asked a Russian native to say "Because I need to learn Russian" which she replied; Потему что мне нужно учить русский язык ...

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I believe the нужно is for agreement with учить, not for язык. нужно + verb infinitive

This is what I was told but the infinitive/any form of учить does not have any gender (as far as I am aware).

Maybe another example that has stumped me will give a clue;

это мне подарила моя бабушка, когда мне было десять лет.

Despite that being the wierdest structured sentance ever, I understand the way that the dative is used when age is involved, but yet again no idea why nuetral было is being used.

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This is what I was told but the infinitive/any form of учить does not have any gender (as far as I am aware)...

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Not a gender function, adverbial. => necessary to leave, necessary to read, necessary to study. With these types of things, нужно is acting as adverb, no gender agreement. => нужно почитать, нужно смотреть &c.

Think of an English sentence like "It hurts when I walk too fast." Does "it" in this case mean:

_ My foot
_ My ankle
_ My knee
_ My hip
_ My lower back
_ My head
_ Possibly several or all of the above
_ None of the above; the pain is mostly in my left testicle but I'm too modest to say "testicle" in mixed company

In fact, "it" does not necessarily have any definite noun referent, and one could substitute "I feel pain when..." for "It hurts when..."

Similarly, in было солнечно, there's no implied noun like день or погода. "It" is just... "it."