Breakdown of После занятия в автошколе мне хочется поехать домой и отдохнуть.
Questions & Answers about После занятия в автошколе мне хочется поехать домой и отдохнуть.
The preposition после (after) requires the genitive case.
So занятие (nominative) changes to занятия (genitive):
- после (чего?) занятия = after the lesson/class
This is a fixed grammar rule for после.
Занятие is a general word meaning a lesson/class/session. In this context (driving school), it can mean either:
- a theory class, or
- a driving lesson/session
Russian often uses занятие for any scheduled instructional session.
в автошколе describes where the class/lesson takes place:
- занятие в автошколе = a lesson at/in the driving school
If you wanted to emphasize leaving the place, you’d use из:
- после занятия я вышел из автошколы = after the class I left the driving school
Here the focus is on the lesson as an event, not the act of exiting the building.
This is an impersonal construction with хочется. There is no normal grammatical subject like я.
Instead, the person who feels the desire is in the dative case:
- мне хочется = I feel like / I want (kind of)
So мне indicates to me, i.e., the experiencer.
Both can translate as I want, but the nuance differs:
- я хочу = a more direct, definite want/plan
- мне хочется = more like I feel like, a spontaneous/subjective desire (often softer)
So мне хочется поехать домой sounds like “I really feel like going home.”
With verbs of desire, Russian chooses aspect based on meaning:
- поехать (perfective) = to set off / go (one trip, as a complete action)
мне хочется поехать домой ≈ “I feel like going home (starting the trip).” - ехать (imperfective) = to be going / be in the process of riding/driving
мне хочется ехать домой would emphasize the process of traveling, like “I feel like being on the way home.”
In this sentence, the idea is the decision to go home as a single action.
домой is an adverb meaning (to) home—it answers “where to?” and is the most natural choice:
- поехать домой = to go home
в дом means “into the house” (physically into a building), and в доме means “in the house” (location), so they don’t match the usual “go home” meaning.
For the verb ехать → поехать, the prefix по- typically marks starting movement and makes the verb perfective:
- ехать = to go/ride/drive (process, imperfective)
- поехать = to set off / go (one-time departure, perfective)
So поехать домой is like “to head off home.”
Both infinitives depend on хочется and describe what the person feels like doing:
- хочется (что сделать?) поехать ... и отдохнуть
The conjunction и connects two desired actions:
1) to go home
2) to rest
отдохнуть is perfective and means to have a rest / to rest (and feel rested afterward)—a complete result.
отдыхать is imperfective and means to be resting / to rest (as an ongoing activity).
After a lesson, it’s very natural to want the “completed” rest: отдохнуть.