Breakdown of Я стараюсь не переживать перед экзаменом.
Questions & Answers about Я стараюсь не переживать перед экзаменом.
The -сь / -ся ending is the reflexive marker in Russian, but it doesn’t always mean “myself” or “yourself” the way English reflexives do.
- The verb here is стараться (not старать
- -ся).
- Many Russian verbs are just reflexive in their basic dictionary form, and there is no non‑reflexive version in normal use.
In this sentence, стараюсь basically just means “I try / I make an effort”. The -сь does not add a clear “myself” meaning; it’s simply part of how the verb стараться is formed and conjugated:
- я стараюсь – I try
- ты стараешься – you try
- он старается – he tries
So you should learn стараться as a single verb meaning “to try, to make an effort,” rather than trying to interpret -сь separately here.
Both стараться and пытаться can be translated as “to try,” but they have different nuances:
стараться = to make an effort, to do one’s best
- Focus on effort, diligence, trying hard.
- Я стараюсь не переживать = “I’m doing my best not to worry.”
пытаться = to attempt, to try (may or may not succeed)
- Focus on the attempt, sometimes with a hint that it’s difficult or may fail.
- Я пытаюсь не переживать = “I’m trying not to worry” (I attempt this, but it might not work).
In your sentence, стараюсь makes it sound more like a conscious, ongoing effort at self‑control, which fits well with “not worrying before an exam.”
This is about what exactly is being negated:
- Я стараюсь не переживать…
= “I try not to worry…” (The worrying is negated.)
If you said:
- Я не стараюсь переживать перед экзаменом.
= “I do not try to worry before the exam.”
That would be a completely different meaning: you’re saying you don’t make an effort to worry, which is strange.
So in Russian, just like in English, the position of не changes the scope:
- стараюсь не переживать – I try not to worry (normal, what you want here)
- не стараюсь переживать – I don’t try to worry (weird, almost never said)
Russian often uses the present tense for:
General or habitual actions
- Я стараюсь не переживать перед экзаменом.
= “I (generally) try not to worry before exams / before an exam.”
- Я стараюсь не переживать перед экзаменом.
Current processes that relate to a future event
- You could be already preparing for a specific upcoming exam and describing your current approach: right now, in this period before the exam, you are trying not to worry.
If you wanted to emphasize a one‑time future effort (e.g., “I will try not to worry (when the time comes)”), you could use the perfective постараюсь:
- Я постараюсь не переживать перед экзаменом.
= “I will try (I’ll make an effort) not to worry before the exam.”
In your original sentence, the present tense стараюсь can cover “I (usually) try” or “I am (these days) trying,” depending on context.
In this context, переживать means “to worry, to be anxious, to be upset”.
The verb actually has two main meanings:
Emotional / mental (used here)
- переживать из-за экзамена – to worry because of the exam
- Не переживай! – Don’t worry!
To live through / go through / survive something
- пережить войну – to live through the war
- пережить трудные времена – to go through hard times
In your sentence, only meaning (1) is relevant.
It’s close to several other “worry” verbs:
- волноваться – to be nervous/anxious, to get worked up
- беспокоиться – to be concerned, to worry
- нервничать – to be nervous, to show nervousness
All of these could work in this sentence with slightly different flavor:
- Я стараюсь не волноваться перед экзаменом.
- Я стараюсь не нервничать перед экзаменом.
But переживать is very common and natural in everyday speech.
The preposition перед (“before, in front of”) normally takes the instrumental case.
- Nominative: экзамен (exam)
- Instrumental: экзаменом
So:
- перед экзаменом = before the exam / in front of the exam (figuratively in time)
This is why the ending changes from -ен to -еном. You can think:
перед + noun → noun must be in the instrumental case.
Other common examples:
- перед домом – in front of / before the house
- перед работой – before work (in time)
Both can translate as “before the exam,” but they feel a bit different:
перед экзаменом
- Very common when talking about the period right before an event, often with a sense of preparation or immediate lead‑up.
- Sounds natural with emotional or mental states:
- Я нервничаю перед экзаменом. – I’m nervous before the exam.
до экзамена
- More neutral “until/before the exam,” often used when talking about time limits or intervals:
- До экзамена осталось два дня. – Two days are left before the exam.
- Я хочу всё выучить до экзамена. – I want to learn everything before the exam.
- More neutral “until/before the exam,” often used when talking about time limits or intervals:
In your sentence, перед экзаменом is more idiomatic because it’s about how you feel in the lead‑up to the exam.
Переживать and пережить are imperfective/perfective partners, but they’re used in different situations:
переживать (imperfective):
- ongoing, repeated, or general emotional state: “to be worrying”
- fits with habits and processes
- Я стараюсь не переживать – I try not to be in a state of worry.
пережить (perfective):
- to live through, to survive, to outlive; to experience completely
- пережить войну – to live through the war
- пережить стресс – to go through (and get over) stress
Я стараюсь не пережить перед экзаменом is wrong/unnatural, because пережить doesn’t mean “to be worrying” here. You need the imperfective переживать to describe the ongoing emotional process you’re trying to avoid.
In Russian, when you “try to do something,” that “something” is usually expressed with an infinitive:
- стараться + infinitive
- Я стараюсь учить слова каждый день. – I try to learn words every day.
- Он старается говорить по-русски. – He tries to speak Russian.
So:
- Я стараюсь не переживать
= “I try not to worry”
= literally “I try not to worry (infinitive).”
This is similar to English try to do / try not to do.
Yes, you can.
Russian verb endings show the person and number, so the subject pronoun is often omitted when it’s clear from context:
- (Я) стараюсь не переживать перед экзаменом.
Both versions are correct. The difference:
- With я – a bit more explicit or emphatic: I try not to worry.
- Without я – more neutral, often used in informal speech, especially if it’s obvious who the subject is.
In isolation (as a single written sentence), including я often feels a bit clearer for learners, but native speakers would have no problem with the version without я in a conversation.
You can change the word order, and the basic meaning stays the same. All of these are grammatically correct:
- Я стараюсь не переживать перед экзаменом.
- Перед экзаменом я стараюсь не переживать.
- Я перед экзаменом стараюсь не переживать.
Russian word order is flexible and often used to control emphasis:
- Starting with Перед экзаменом… (sentence 2) emphasizes the time frame (“Before the exam, I try not to worry”).
- Starting with Я… (sentence 1) is more neutral, especially as a standalone example.
In everyday speech, all these variants would sound normal in the right context.
Stresses (accented vowels in uppercase):
- Я стара́юсь не пережива́ть перед экза́меном.
Approximate pronunciation (stressed syllables in CAPS):
- стара́юсь – sta-RA-yus’
- пережива́ть – pe-ree-zhee-VAT’ (more exactly pe-ree-zhee-VATʹ)
- экза́меном – e-kZA-me-nam (with stress on ZA)
Key points:
- In стара́юсь, the stress is on ра: стара́юсь.
- In пережива́ть, the stress is on the last syllable: пережива́ть.
- In экза́меном, the stress is on за: экза́меном.
Correct stress is important in Russian, because changing it can make words sound unnatural or even change meaning.