Я хочу захистити друга.

I want to protect a friend.

Breakdown of Я хочу захистити друга.

• я: I
• друг: the friend
• хотіти: to want
• захистити: to protect

Questions & Answers about Я хочу захистити друга.

Why is Я used in this sentence? Can I drop it?

In Ukrainian, verbs are conjugated for person and number, so хочу already tells you the subject is “I.” Including Я is optional and mainly adds emphasis or clarity. If you drop Я, you still get a grammatically correct sentence:
• Хочу захистити друга.
This simply sounds more neutral or colloquial, while Я хочу… feels a bit more emphatic (“I personally want…”).

What is хочу, and how do you form “I want” in Ukrainian?

хочу is the first-person singular present tense of the verb хотіти (“to want”). The pattern is:
• root хоч- + ending -у = хочу (“I want”).

To say “we want,” for example, use хочемо; for “you (singular)” it’s хочеш, and so on.

Why is the verb захистити used instead of захищати? What’s the difference?

This is an aspectual distinction:
• захистити is the perfective infinitive – it implies a completed action (“to protect (and succeed in protecting)”).
• захищати is the imperfective infinitive – it focuses on the ongoing or habitual process (“to be protecting”).

Choosing one over the other depends on whether you emphasize the completion of the action (perfective) or its duration/regularity (imperfective).

What case is друга, and why doesn’t it stay друг?

Here друга is the masculine animate accusative. In Ukrainian, animate masculine nouns take the genitive form when they’re direct objects. For друг (“friend”):
• Nominative (subject) = друг
• Genitive (also accusative for animate) = друга

So although in English we’d say “protect friend,” in Ukrainian you say захистити друга to mark him as the object.

Why isn’t there a word for “to” before захистити (like English “to protect”)?

Ukrainian infinitives don’t require a particle equivalent to English to. The infinitive form is identified by the ending -ти (or occasionally -тися/-ться in reflexive verbs). So you simply attach -ти to the verb stem, e.g., захистити, навчити, гуляти.

How do you pronounce захистити, and where is the stress?

Phonetically it’s [zɐˈxɪs.tɪ.tɪ], with the primary stress on the second syllable: za-ХИ-sty-ty. Break-down:
• za (unstressed)
• ХИ (stressed)
• sty-ty (each unstressed)

Can I change the word order, e.g., Я хочу друга захистити or Захистити друга я хочу?

Yes. Thanks to case endings, Ukrainian word order is quite flexible. The neutral order is Subject–Verb–Object (Я хочу захистити друга), but you can move elements for emphasis:
• Я хочу друга захистити (focus on друга, “it’s specifically the friend I want to protect”).
• Захистити друга я хочу (more poetic or emphatic, stressing the action).
All variations remain grammatically correct and understandable.