Questions & Answers about Я хочу ещё хлеб.
Why is хлеб in this form? Shouldn’t it be хлеба in the accusative?
In Russian, masculine inanimate nouns have the same form in the nominative and accusative cases.
- Nominative: хлеб – “bread”
- Accusative: хлеб – “bread” (same form)
So after хочу (I want), which takes the accusative case for its object, хлеб stays as хлеб.
However, you may also hear ещё хлеба instead of ещё хлеб. In that case хлеба is genitive, often used as a “partitive” genitive, meaning “some more bread” (an indefinite amount). Both are possible, with slightly different nuances (see below).
What exactly does ещё mean here?
In this sentence, ещё means “more”:
- Я хочу ещё хлеб. – I want more bread.
The word ещё can have several meanings depending on context:
- “more / another” – ещё хлеб, ещё воду (more bread, more water)
- “still” – Я ещё здесь. (I’m still here.)
- “yet” – Он ещё не пришёл. (He hasn’t come yet.)
In this particular sentence, it is clearly the “more” meaning.
Why is it Я хочу ещё хлеб, not ?