Learn Hardcore Russian: Уставший студент хочет просто поспать. - The tired student just wants to sleep a little.

уставший is a participle (literally “having gotten tired”), often used when you slightly emphasize the process or result of becoming tired. It can sound a bit more descriptive or literary in some contexts.
усталый is an adjective, more like a stable characteristic at that moment (“tired”).

In this sentence:

Уставший студент хочет просто поспать.
→ You imagine a student who has just gone through tiring activities (studying, working, etc.), and as a result, now he’s tired.

You could also say:

Усталый студент хочет просто поспать.

That would still be correct and very natural; the difference is extremely subtle in everyday speech. Уставший may slightly emphasize that he got tired from something he did, but in practice both are fine here.

Why is студент in this form? Why not студента or студентом?

Студент is in the nominative case, because it is the subject of the sentence – the one doing the action of wanting.

Кто хочет? – студент (Who wants? – the student.)

Russian uses different forms (cases) of nouns depending on their role:

Nominative (кто? что?): subject of the sentence → студент
Genitive (кого? чего?): possession, quantity, etc. → студента
Instrumental (кем? чем?): “with”, “by means of”, role → студентом

Here we need the subject form, so студент is correct.

Where are the English articles “a/the”? Why is it just студент without something like “a student”?

Russian does not have articles like a/an or the. The bare noun студент can mean:

a student
the student
sometimes just “student” in a generic sense, depending on context.

The exact meaning (a / the / this / that) is understood from the situation, or sometimes clarified by other words. For example:

Один студент – one student / a (certain) student
Этот студент – this student
Тот студент – that student

In this isolated sentence, Уставший студент хочет просто поспать can be translated as:

The tired student just wants to sleep
or
A tired student just wants to sleep

Both are possible; context would decide which is more natural.

Why is it поспать and not спать? What does the по- prefix change?

Спать is an imperfective verb: to sleep (in general, as a process).
Поспать is a perfective verb formed with the prefix по-, and it usually means:

to sleep for a while / to get some sleep / to sleep a bit (and finish)

So:

хочет спать – “wants to sleep” (focus on the state or process of sleeping).
хочет поспать – “wants to sleep for a while / get some sleep” (focus on a limited, completed action).

In this sentence, поспать adds the nuance that the student wants some rest, not a permanent state of sleeping. It’s like saying: “He just wants to get some sleep.”

What is the difference between хочет поспать and хочет спать?

Both are grammatically correct, but they don’t sound the same:

Он хочет спать.
Literally: He wants to sleep.
More naturally: He is sleepy / He feels like sleeping.
This often describes a current state: he is tired and sleepy right now.
Он хочет поспать.
Literally: He wants to sleep (for a while).
More like: He wants to get some sleep / He wants to have a sleep.
This emphasizes his desire to perform the action “sleep for some time”. It can sound more like a plan or wish (“I’d like to sleep a bit”).

In your sentence:

Уставший студент хочет просто поспать.
→ He’s tired and wants to get some sleep (for a while), not just describing his state as “sleepy” but expressing a wish to take a nap or rest.

What does просто mean here? Is it “simple” or “just”?

Просто has several related meanings; here it means just / simply in the sense of “nothing more, nothing complicated”.

In this sentence:

хочет просто поспать
→ (He) just wants to sleep / simply wants to sleep.

This suggests:

He doesn’t want to do anything else (no talking, no studying, no going out).
His wish is modest and straightforward: just sleep.

So просто modifies the whole phrase хочет поспать, softening it and making it sound more natural and conversational.

Is the word order fixed? Can I say Просто уставший студент хочет поспать or Студент хочет поспать просто?

Russian word order is more flexible than English, but changes in order often change emphasis or style.

Уставший студент хочет просто поспать.
Neutral, natural: The tired student just wants to sleep.
Просто уставший студент хочет поспать.
This sounds like: It’s simply (just) the tired student who wants to sleep.
Now просто emphasizes the whole statement (“nothing special, it’s just the tired student…”). This is less neutral and more contextual or contrastive.
Студент хочет просто поспать. Уставший.
Broken into two parts, adding extra emphasis to tired at the end. More like spoken, dramatic style.
Студент хочет поспать просто.
Unusual; просто at the end can sound a bit awkward here and may be understood as “sleep in a simple way” rather than “just wants to sleep”.

In standard neutral speech, Уставший студент хочет просто поспать is the most natural. Small changes are possible, but be careful: moving просто can change what exactly is being called “just/simple”.

Why is it уставший and not уставшая / уставшее / уставшие? How does agreement work here?

Уставший agrees with студент in:

gender: masculine
number: singular
case: nominative

Студент is a masculine noun, so the participle уставший takes the masculine nominative singular ending -ий / -ый / -ший → уставший.

If you change the noun, уставший must change to match:

Уставший студент (masc. sing.) – a tired (male) student
Уставшая студентка (fem. sing.) – a tired (female) student
Уставшее ребёнок (neut. sing.) – a tired child
Уставшие студенты (plural) – tired students

So the pattern is:

Masc. sg.: уставший
Fem. sg.: уставшая
Neut. sg.: уставшее
Plural: уставшие

This is regular adjective/participle agreement in Russian.

Why is there no он (“he”) at the beginning? Could we say Он уставший студент…?

Russian is a pro‑drop language: subject pronouns like он / она / они are often omitted when the subject is clearly indicated by a noun or by verb endings.

Here the subject is студент, so we don’t need он:

Уставший студент хочет просто поспать. – correct and natural.

If you said:

Он, уставший студент, хочет просто поспать.

this would sound like a special structure with an inserted apposition: He, a tired student, just wants to sleep. It’s possible, but stylistically different and not what you normally say here.

Он уставший студент хочет просто поспать without commas is ungrammatical.

So in this simple sentence, you just use the noun subject and drop the pronoun: Уставший студент…

How do you pronounce this sentence? Where is the stress in each word?

Word-by-word:

Уставший – [уставший]
- Stress on the second syllable: у‑став‑ший.
студент – [студент]
- Stress on the last syllable: сту‑дент.
хочет – [хочет]
- Stress on the first syllable: хо‑чет.
просто – [просто]
- Stress on the first syllable: про‑сто.
поспать – [поспа́ть]
- Stress on the second syllable: по‑спать.

So the stressed vowels are:

уставший
студент
хочет
просто
поспать

Said naturally:
Уста́вший студе́нт хо́чет про́сто поспа́ть.