Я хочу сдать экзамен.

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Breakdown of Я хочу сдать экзамен.

• хотеть: to want
• экзамен: the exam
• сдать: to hand in

Questions & Answers about Я хочу сдать экзамен.

Why is there no word like to before сдать? In English we say I want to pass the exam.

In Russian, an infinitive verb (сдать, идти, читать, etc.) can follow another verb directly without a word like to.

• хочу сдать literally is want pass (to pass).
• The infinitive ending -ть on сдать already shows that it is to pass, so no extra word is needed.

So Russian uses verb + infinitive:

• Я хочу сдать экзамен. – I want to pass the exam.
• Я буду сдавать экзамен. – I will be taking the exam.

What case is экзамен in, and why does it look like the dictionary form?

Экзамен here is in the accusative case as the direct object of сдать.

For inanimate masculine nouns like экзамен, the accusative singular looks the same as the nominative singular:

• Nominative (dictionary form): экзамен
• Accusative: экзамен (same form)

If it were a feminine noun, you would usually see a change:

• Я хочу сдать контрольную. – I want to pass the test.
  (контрольная → контрольную, feminine accusative)