Сильный спортсмен хочет победить.

The strong athlete wants to win.

Breakdown of Сильный спортсмен хочет победить.

• хотеть: to want
• сильный: strong
• спортсмен: the athlete
• победить: to win

Questions & Answers about Сильный спортсмен хочет победить.

Why is there no word for “the” before спортсмен? In English we say “The strong athlete wants to win.”

Russian has no articles (a / an / the) at all.

So Сильный спортсмен хочет победить can mean:

• A strong athlete wants to win.
• The strong athlete wants to win.

Which one is meant depends on context, not on any separate word. Russian listeners figure out whether it’s “a” or “the” from the situation or previous sentences.

Why is it сильный спортсмен and not сильная спортсмен or something else?

In Russian, adjectives agree with the noun in gender, number, and case.

• спортсмен = masculine, singular, nominative
• The matching form of сильный (strong) for masculine singular nominative is also сильный.

So:

• сильный спортсмен – strong athlete (male)
• сильная спортсменка – strong athlete (female)
  
  • here the noun is спортсменка (feminine), so the adjective becomes сильная.

If you changed the noun, the adjective would change too:

• сильная команда (strong team – feminine)
• сильное тело (strong body – neuter)
• сильные спортсмены (strong athletes – plural)

What case is спортсмен in, and how can I tell?

спортсмен is in the nominative case.

Clues:

• It is the subject of the sentence – the one doing the action:
  (Кто?) спортсмен хочет победить. – Who wants to win? The athlete does.
• The dictionary form of a noun is also nominative, so спортсмен appears unchanged.

In this sentence, nothing is forcing спортсмен into any other case (no preposition before it, no verb that requires an object form, etc.), so nominative is the natural choice.

Why is it хочет, not хочу, хочешь, etc.?

хотеть = to want. It’s irregular in the present tense. For singular:

• я хочу – I want
• ты хочешь – you (singular, informal) want
• он / она / оно хочет – he / she / it wants

Since спортсмен is he (3rd person singular), you use хочет:

• Спортсмен хочет победить.
  = Он хочет победить. – He wants to win.

Why is победить in the infinitive form? How does “wants to win” work in Russian?

The pattern хотеть + infinitive is how Russian expresses “to want to do something.”

Structure:

• хотеть (conjugated) + infinitive verb

So:

• Спортсмен хочет победить.
  literally = The athlete wants to win
  – хочет = wants
  – победить = (to) win

Other examples:

• Я хочу есть. – I want to eat.
• Она хочет спать. – She wants to sleep.
• Мы хотим поехать. – We want to go (by transport).

What is the difference between победить and побеждать for “to win”?

Both can translate as “to win,” but they differ in aspect:

• победить – perfective

  • Focus: result, one-time victory, completed action
  • Typical translation: to win (once, achieve victory)
  • Example: Он хочет победить. – He wants to win (get the victory).

• побеждать – imperfective

  • Focus: process, repeated or habitual winning
  • Typical translations: to be winning, to keep winning, to win regularly
  • Example: Он любит побеждать. – He likes winning (in general).
  • Он часто побеждает. – He often wins.

In your sentence хочет победить, the idea is: he wants to achieve victory in this contest/match, so perfective победить is natural.

Could I say хочет выигрывать instead of хочет победить?

You can, but the meaning changes slightly.

• победить – to defeat, to be the winner in a clear opposition (beat an opponent).
• выиграть / выигрывать – to win something, to win a game, prize, sum of money, etc.

Shades of meaning:

• Он хочет победить. – He wants to win (as in defeat his opponent, be the victor).
• Он хочет выигрывать. – He wants to be (generally) winning / to win (often, habitually).

For this specific competition, he wants to win, победить is the more typical choice.

Can the word order be different, like Спортсмен сильный хочет победить?

Russian word order is more flexible than English, but not all orders sound equally natural.

• Сильный спортсмен хочет победить.
  – Neutral, natural: The strong athlete wants to win.

• Спортсмен сильный хочет победить.
  – Possible, but now it sounds like you’re specially emphasizing that the athlete is strong:
  The athlete – he’s strong – wants to win. (almost like an afterthought or contrast)

• Спортсмен хочет победить.
  – You just say The athlete wants to win, without mentioning strength.

Usually, for a simple descriptive phrase in neutral style, adjective + noun (сильный спортсмен) is best.

Does сильный спортсмен mean only “physically strong,” or can it mean “very good / successful” as well?

сильный can be both literal and figurative, depending on context:

• Literal: physically strong

  • сильный спортсмен – an athlete with great physical strength.

• Figurative: strong as in skilled, powerful, high level

  • сильный спортсмен – a very good athlete / top-level athlete.
  • сильная команда – a strong (highly capable) team.
  • сильный игрок – a strong player (good player).

Without extra context, сильный спортсмен is a bit ambiguous; both “physically strong” and “very good/strong as a competitor” are possible.

How do you pronounce Сильный спортсмен хочет победить? Where are the stresses?

Stresses (marked here with caps for the stressed syllables):

• СИльный – stress on СИ, the first syllable
• спортсмЕн – stress on Е (second syllable: sport-SMEN)
• ХОчeт – stress on ХО
• победИть – stress on И (last syllable)

So overall:

СИльный спортсмЕн ХОчeт победИть.

Notes:

• In сильный, the льн cluster has a soft лʲ (like ly).
• In спортсмен, the consonant cluster ртсм is pronounced without extra vowels: [sparts-MEN].
• Final -ть in победить is soft and not aspirated; it slightly softens the д before it.