Questions & Answers about Завтра я хочу перечитать третий урок.
What is the difference between the verbs читать and перечитать, and what does the prefix пере- add?
читать is imperfective, meaning “to read” (focus on the process, not completion).
перечитать is perfective with the prefix пере-, adding the sense of “read again” or “read through completely a second time.” The perfective aspect also signals that you intend to finish the action.
Why is a perfective infinitive (перечитать) used after хочу? I thought you always use imperfective verbs after “want.”
In Russian, хотеть can govern both aspects, but with different nuances:
• With imperfective (e.g. хочу читать) you express desire to engage in an ongoing action (“I want to be reading”).
• With perfective (e.g. хочу перечитать) you express desire to achieve the result (“I want to finish reading again”). Here, the speaker cares about completing the reading of lesson 3.
Why is it третий урок and not третьего урока? Shouldn’t the direct object change case?
In this sentence третий урок is the direct object of перечитать and so it’s in the accusative case. Since урок is a masculine inanimate noun, its accusative form is identical to the nominative. Likewise, the ordinal третий declines like an adjective, and its accusative masculine singular form also coincides with the nominative третий.
Can you omit the pronoun in “Завтра я хочу перечитать третий урок”?