Learn Hardcore Russian: Я хочу поговорить с другом вечером. - I want to talk with a friend in the evening.

So хочу does not change depending on what you want; it only changes with who wants (я, ты, он, etc.). The next verb stays in the infinitive form: поговорить, есть, спать, etc.

Why is it поговорить and not говорить here? What’s the difference?

Говорить and поговорить are two different aspects of the verb “to talk/speak.”

говорить – imperfective aspect (focus on process, repeated action, general ability)
поговорить – perfective aspect (focus on completing an action once, for some time)

In this sentence:

Я хочу поговорить с другом вечером.
This suggests: I want to have a conversation / talk (once), have a chat, at some point this evening, and complete that talk.

If you said:

Я хочу говорить с другом вечером.

this would sound strange or unnatural in most contexts. It could imply you want to be in the state of speaking with your friend this evening (focusing on the ongoing process), which is not how you usually express “I want to have a talk” in Russian.

For “have a talk / have a chat” about something specific or for a while, поговорить is the natural perfective choice.

Why is the second verb in the infinitive form поговорить, not something like поговорю?

After verbs like хотеть (to want), любить (to like), мочь (can), надо (need to), Russian normally uses the infinitive:

Я хочу поговорить. – I want to talk.
Я буду говорить. – I will speak.
Я могу поговорить. – I can talk.

If you said:

Я хочу поговорю с другом вечером.

this would be ungrammatical. You cannot follow хочу directly with a finite (conjugated) verb in this way. After хочу, you must use the infinitive поговорить.

What does с другом literally mean, and why is it this form, not с друг or с друга?

С другом means “with (a) friend”.

с – preposition “with”
другом – the noun друг (friend) in the instrumental case, singular

In Russian, after с meaning “with”, you normally use the instrumental case:

с другом – with (a) friend
с сестрой – with (a) sister
с мамой – with (mom)
с учителем – with (the) teacher

The noun друг changes by cases:

Nominative (dictionary form): друг – friend
Accusative: друга (for animate masculine) – I see a friend: Я вижу друга.
Instrumental: другом – with (a) friend: с другом

So we say с другом, not с друг or с друга, because с + person/thing = instrumental case.

Why does друг become другом? How is this instrumental ending formed?

Друг is a masculine noun ending in a consonant. In the instrumental singular, most such nouns take -ом:

стол → столом – table → with the table (со столом)
брат → братом – brother → with a brother (с братом)
друг → другом – friend → with a friend (с другом)

So:

Nominative: друг
Instrumental singular: другом

This pattern (consonant + ом) is very common for masculine nouns in the instrumental singular.

Could I say с моим другом instead of с другом? How would that change the meaning?

Yes:

с другом – with a friend / with my friend / with the friend (context decides)
с моим другом – with my friend (explicitly)

Russian does not use articles (a / the), so с другом is ambiguous and can mean:

with a friend
with the friend we’ve already mentioned
with my friend (if context makes it clear)

If you want to explicitly say “my friend,” you say:

Я хочу поговорить с моим другом вечером.

Grammatically:

мой (my) in the instrumental masculine singular becomes моим
so we get с моим другом.

What exactly is вечером grammatically, and why not just вечер?

Вечером is the instrumental singular form of вечер (evening), used adverbially to mean “in the evening / at nightfall”.

Nominative: вечер – evening
Instrumental: вечером

Russian often uses the instrumental singular of time nouns to express “in/at … (time of day)”:

утро → утром – in the morning
день → днём – in the daytime
вечер → вечером – in the evening
ночь → ночью – at night

You do not normally say в вечер for “in the evening.” You either say вечером or use another structure (for example, сегодня вечером – this evening).

Can I move вечером to a different place in the sentence, like Вечером я хочу поговорить с другом? Is that still correct?

Yes, that is correct. Russian word order is relatively flexible. All of these are grammatically fine:

Я хочу поговорить с другом вечером.
Вечером я хочу поговорить с другом.
Я вечером хочу поговорить с другом.

The basic meaning is the same: you want to talk to a friend in the evening.

Differences are mostly about emphasis:

Вечером я хочу поговорить с другом.
Slightly stronger focus on “in the evening” (as opposed to another time).
Я хочу поговорить с другом вечером.
More neutral; sounds very natural as a full sentence.

For a beginner, it’s safe to keep time expressions (like вечером) at the end or at the beginning of the sentence.

In English I must say “a friend” or “my friend”. Does с другом mean “with a friend” or “with my friend”?

Russian has no articles (no “a/an” or “the”), so с другом by itself is ambiguous. It can mean:

with a friend
with the friend (one that we know from context)
with my friend / with his friend, etc., if context makes that clear

If you need to be precise, you add a possessive pronoun:

с моим другом – with my friend
с его другом – with his friend
с этим другом – with this friend

In isolation, Я хочу поговорить с другом вечером is usually understood as “I want to talk with a friend (of mine) this evening”, without specifying which friend.

Could I drop я and simply say Хочу поговорить с другом вечером?

Yes. In spoken and informal Russian, the subject pronoun я is often omitted when it is obvious from context and from the verb ending:

Хочу поговорить с другом вечером.
Literally: “(I) want to talk with a friend in the evening.”

Because хочу can only be 1st person singular (I want), the subject я is understood.

Both forms are correct; with “я” is a bit clearer and more neutral:

Я хочу поговорить с другом вечером. – fully explicit
Хочу поговорить с другом вечером. – more colloquial / conversational

How is с другом pronounced? Do Russians really say [с другом] or something like [з другом]?

In normal speech, с другом is typically pronounced closer to [з другом].

This is because of voicing assimilation: the unvoiced с becomes voiced з before the voiced д:

Written: с другом
Spoken: [з другом]

This is purely a phonetic change; the spelling never changes. You always write с другом.

What is the stress pattern in Я хочу поговорить с другом вечером?

Stresses in this sentence:

Я хочу поговорить с другом вечером

Word by word:

я – usually unstressed in sentence flow
хочу – stress on -чу: хочу
поговорить – stress on final syllable: поговорить
с – no stress (short preposition)
другом – stress on дру: другом
вечером – stress on ве: вечером

If I used говорить instead of поговорить, what would Я хочу говорить с другом вечером sound like?

Я хочу говорить с другом вечером is grammatically possible, but sounds unnatural in most everyday contexts.

Using говорить (imperfective) after хочу suggests:

wanting to be in a state of speaking with the friend
focusing on the ongoing process or ability

It could fit in some very specific contexts (for example, “I want to be able to speak with my friend in the evening” when talking about schedule or conditions), but as a neutral “I want to have a talk with my friend this evening,” Russian strongly prefers поговорить.

So for a planned, one-off conversation, use:

Я хочу поговорить с другом вечером. ✔️