Я ждал такси целый час.

Ждал is the past tense form of the verb ждать (to wait).

• ждать = infinitive, to wait
• жду = present tense, I am waiting / I wait
• ждал = past tense, I waited / was waiting

So in Я ждал такси целый час, the speaker is talking about something that already happened.

In Russian, the past tense is commonly formed with -л.

For ждать, the stem is жда-, so:

• masculine: ждал
• feminine: ждала
• neuter: ждало
• plural: ждали

In this sentence, ждал shows that the speaker is masculine singular. A woman would normally say:

Я ждала такси целый час.

Russian uses a different structure from English here. The verb ждать usually takes a direct object, so there is often no preposition equivalent to English for.

So:

• English: wait for a taxi
• Russian: ждать такси

This is very common with Russian verbs: the structure does not always match English word-for-word.

Here такси is in the accusative case, because it is the direct object of ждал.

However, такси is a special noun: it is indeclinable, meaning its form does not change across cases. So the accusative looks exactly the same as the nominative:

• nominative: такси
• accusative: такси
• genitive: такси

The case is understood from the sentence structure, not from the ending.

Here it is singular: a taxi / the taxi, depending on context.

Russian has no articles, so такси could mean:

• a taxi
• the taxi

Also, такси can look the same in singular and plural, because it is indeclinable. Context tells you which meaning is intended.

Целый means whole or entire, and час means hour. Together, целый час means a whole hour.

This phrase emphasizes the length of time:

• Я ждал такси час = I waited for a taxi for an hour
• Я ждал такси целый час = I waited for a taxi for a whole hour

So целый adds emphasis, often suggesting that the wait felt long or annoying.

Because this sentence uses the accusative of duration: Russian often puts a time expression in the accusative to show how long something lasted.

So:

• ждал час = waited for an hour
• ждал целый час = waited for a whole hour

The form час is the accusative singular here, and for this noun it looks the same as the nominative singular.

You may know:

• два часа = two hours
• пять часов = five hours

Those are different because Russian number phrases affect the noun form differently.

Ждать is imperfective, and that makes sense here because the sentence describes:

• a process or ongoing situation
• duration
• the fact of spending time waiting

Я ждал такси целый час focuses on the waiting as an activity lasting an hour.

A perfective verb would usually give a different meaning, often emphasizing completion or result. With wait, Russian often prefers the imperfective when talking about duration.

So this sentence is about the experience of waiting, not about a completed result such as finally getting the taxi.

Yes, Russian word order is more flexible than English, although the neutral order here is very natural:

Я ждал такси целый час.

Other orders are possible, for example:

• Целый час я ждал такси.
• Такси я ждал целый час.

These versions change the emphasis:

• Целый час... emphasizes the duration
• Такси я ждал... emphasizes that it was a taxi that was being waited for

So the original sentence is straightforward and neutral, but word order can be moved around for focus.

Yes, grammatically you can, because ожидать also means to wait for / to expect. But ждать is more common and natural in everyday speech.

Compare:

• ждать такси = normal, everyday
• ожидать такси = more formal, literary, or official-sounding in many contexts

So a learner should usually prefer ждать unless there is a special reason to use ожидать.

It can mean either, depending on context, because Russian has no articles.

So такси may mean:

• a taxi
• the taxi

Without more context, English speakers often translate it as I waited for a taxi for a whole hour, because that sounds more natural as a general statement. But if the context has already identified a specific taxi, it could mean the taxi.