Она сама готовится к экзамену.

She prepares for the exam herself.

Breakdown of Она сама готовится к экзамену.

• она: she
• готовиться: to prepare
• экзамен: the exam
• к: for
• сама: itself

Questions & Answers about Она сама готовится к экзамену.

What does сама add to the meaning? Why not just Она готовится к экзамену?

Она готовится к экзамену = She is preparing for the exam (neutral statement).

Она сама готовится к экзамену adds emphasis on she herself. Typical nuances:

• She is doing it without help (no tutor, no parents, etc.).
• She, not someone else, is the one preparing.

So сама here is an emphatic “herself”, not necessary for grammar but important for nuance.

What is the difference between сама and одна? Both can relate to “by herself/alone”, right?

Yes, but they focus on slightly different things:

• сама (fem. of сам) = herself, emphasizing the person doing something independently or without help.

  • Она сама готовится к экзамену. – She is preparing herself, no one is helping.

• одна (fem. of один) = alone, emphasizing physical solitude.

  • Она готовится к экзамену одна. – She is preparing alone (no one is present).

Sometimes both are true, so they can appear together:

• Она сама готовится к экзамену одна. – She is preparing for the exam by herself and she’s alone.

But they are not interchangeable in all contexts. For example:

• Она сама написала это сочинение. – She wrote this essay herself (no help).
  
  • Using одна here (Она одна написала это сочинение) would sound odd and unclear.

Why does the verb end with -ся (готовится)? What does that mean?

The -ся (or -сь after vowels) at the end of a verb makes it reflexive (or related to reflexive/“self” meaning).

• Dictionary (infinitive) form: готовиться – to prepare (oneself), to get ready.
• Non‑reflexive form: готовить – to prepare (something), to cook.

With готовиться, the subject is preparing themself. So Она готовится literally is “She is preparing herself / She is getting ready”.

In contrast:

• Она готовит экзамен. – She is preparing the exam (e.g. she is the teacher making the exam).
• Она готовится к экзамену. – She is preparing for the exam (she is the student).

So the -ся here is essential: it turns “prepare something” into “prepare oneself (for something)”.

What is the infinitive and how do you conjugate готовится?

Infinitive: готовиться (imperfective aspect).

Present tense conjugation (stress in capital letters):

• я готОвлюсь – I am preparing (myself)
• ты готОвишься – you (sg., informal) are preparing (yourself)
• он / она / оно готОвится – he / she / it is preparing (themself)
• мы готОвимся – we are preparing (ourselves)
• вы готОвитесь – you (pl. or formal) are preparing (yourselves)
• они готОвятся – they are preparing (themselves)

Our sentence uses она готОвится (3rd person singular).

What is the difference between готовиться к экзамену and готовить экзамен?

These are two different verbs and roles:

• готовиться к экзамену – to prepare for an exam (as a candidate).

  • Subject is the student.
  • Reflexive verb готовиться
    • к
      • dative.

• готовить экзамен – to prepare an exam (to compose it).

  • Subject is usually the teacher or examiner.
  • Non‑reflexive verb готовить
    • direct object in the accusative (экзамен).

So:

• Она готовится к экзамену. – She is studying / getting ready to take the exam.
• Она готовит экзамен. – She is preparing (putting together) the exam questions.

Why do we use the preposition к with экзамену? Why not для or something else?

К literally means towards / to and takes the dative case. With certain verbs it expresses direction in a figurative sense, like preparing towards some event or goal:

• готовиться к экзамену – to prepare for the exam
• готовиться к поездке – to prepare for the trip
• готовиться к войне – to prepare for war

Using для would be wrong here:

• готовиться для экзамена – not idiomatic in Russian.

Для (“for, for the benefit of”) is used in other structures, e.g. книга для экзамена (a book for the exam), but not with готовиться. With готовиться, the fixed pattern is готовиться к + dative.

Why does экзамену end with -у instead of -а or -ом?

Экзамену is dative singular.

Base form (nominative): экзамен (an exam).
Dative singular of masculine nouns like this is usually -у or -ю:

• экзамен → экзамену
• урок → уроку
• друг → другу

The preposition к always requires dative:

• к кому? – to whom?
• к чему? – to what?

So:

• к экзамену – to/for the exam (dative).
  That is why you see экзамену with -у.

Can we drop она and just say Сама готовится к экзамену?

You can say Сама готовится к экзамену in context, but:

• Grammatically, the subject она is implied by the verb ending -ится (3rd singular), so the sentence is possible.
• However, in isolation it sounds incomplete or like a fragment, because сама at the beginning strongly expects some contrast (e.g. Сама готовится к экзамену, а брат вообще не занимается. – She herself is preparing for the exam, but her brother doesn’t study at all).

Most of the time, the natural full sentence is:

• Она сама готовится к экзамену.

You normally keep она unless the subject is already very clear from context or you’re continuing a sentence.

Where can сама go in the sentence, and how does word order change the emphasis?

Possible positions (all grammatically correct, but with different emphasis):

1. Она сама готовится к экзамену.

   • Neutral, very common. Emphasis on she herself (not others).

2. Сама она готовится к экзамену.

   • Stronger, contrastive emphasis: She herself (in contrast to others) is preparing.
   • Often used when comparing:
     
     • Сама она готовится к экзамену, а сына к экзамену готовит репетитор.

3. Она готовится к экзамену сама.

   • Emphasizes “by herself, without help” slightly more than option 1, often with nuance of no tutor / assistance.

All three are correct; choice depends on what you want to highlight (subject contrast, independence, etc.).

How would you say “She is preparing for the exams” (plural) or other types of tests?

For plural exams:

• Она готовится к экзаменам. – She is preparing for the exams.

Other common nouns (still with к + dative):

• Она готовится к тесту. – She is preparing for the test.
• Она готовится к контрольной. – She is preparing for the test / class test.
• Она готовится к коллоквиуму. – She is preparing for the colloquium.

Pattern stays the same: готовиться к + [event in dative case].

How do you say this sentence in the past and future tenses?

Present (original):

• Она сама готовится к экзамену. – She is (she does) prepare for the exam.

Past (imperfective, process):

• Она сама готовилась к экзамену. – She was preparing / used to prepare for the exam (process, background).

Future (imperfective, process / duration):

• Она сама будет готовиться к экзамену. – She will be preparing / will prepare (over a period of time) for the exam.

For a completed future result you usually switch to a perfective partner verb:

• Она сама подготовится к экзамену. – She will (successfully) prepare for the exam herself.

So:

• готовиться → ongoing process
• подготовиться → to get oneself ready completely (result).

Why don’t we say Она готовит себя к экзамену instead of Она готовится к экзамену?

Она готовит себя к экзамену is grammatically possible but sounds unusual and stylistically heavy; it would be used only in very specific, formal, or psychological contexts.

In everyday Russian, there is a lexicalized reflexive verb:

• готовиться к чему‑то – to prepare oneself for something

Because this reflexive form exists and is standard, native speakers use it:

• Она готовится к экзамену. – normal, idiomatic.

Готовить себя к экзамену would emphasize an almost literal, deliberate “training” of oneself and sound abstract or bookish. In normal speech about studying, always use готовиться к экзамену.

How is готовится pronounced and where is the stress?

готовится is pronounced approximately like ga-TOH-veet-sya:

• Phonetic (roughly): [ga-TÓ-vit-sya]
• Stress is on the second syllable: готОвится.

Syllable breakdown: го-тО-ви-тся.

Notice:

• The unstressed о in го- is reduced and sounds more like a in casual speech.
• The stressed О in тО is clear and full.

The same stress pattern is kept throughout its present tense forms:

• я готОвлюсь
• ты готОвишься
• он/она готОвится
• мы готОвимся
• вы готОвитесь
• они готОвятся

What is сама grammatically? Is it a pronoun, an adjective, or something else?

Сам / сама / само / сами behave like a pronoun‑adjective in Russian:

• They decline like adjectives (change for gender, number, and case).
• They function similarly to an emphatic pronoun “self” (myself, yourself, himself…).

Forms:

• Masculine: сам – Он сам готовится. (He himself is preparing.)
• Feminine: сама – Она сама готовится.
• Neuter: само – Дело само делается. (The thing does itself.)
• Plural: сами – Они сами готовятся. (They themselves are preparing.)

In our sentence, сама is feminine singular, agreeing with она.