Breakdown of Коли я бачу знайоме обличчя, мені хочеться посміхнутися.
Questions & Answers about Коли я бачу знайоме обличчя, мені хочеться посміхнутися.
Мені хочеться literally means something like “it is wanted to me” or “I feel like (doing something)”.
- мені – “to me” (dative case of я – I)
- хочеться – impersonal form from хотіти (to want), roughly “is wanted” + -ся
You use мені хочеться when:
- you talk about a spontaneous desire or mood: Мені хочеться посміхнутися – “I feel like smiling.”
- the focus is on the feeling, not a firm decision.
Я хочу посміхнутися is stronger: “I want to smile” (more intentional, more under your control). Both are correct, but мені хочеться sounds softer and more natural here.
Хочеться is:
- from the verb хотіти (to want)
- 3rd person singular neuter: хоче
- plus the reflexive particle -ся → хо́четься
It creates an impersonal construction: there is no clear grammatical subject (“it” is not expressed). The person who feels the desire is put in dative:
- Мені хочеться… – “I feel like…”
- Тобі хочеться… – “You feel like…”
- Нам хочеться… – “We feel like…”
So the pattern is:
[Dative pronoun] + хочеться + [infinitive]
e.g. Мені хочеться поспати. – “I feel like sleeping.”
Because обличчя (face) in Ukrainian is neuter gender. Adjectives must agree with the noun in gender, number, and case.
- обличчя – neuter, singular, nominative
- therefore the adjective must be neuter, singular, nominative → знайоме
Forms of знайомий (familiar, acquainted):
- masculine: знайомий (знайомий чоловік – a familiar man)
- feminine: знайома (знайома жінка – a familiar woman)
- neuter: знайоме (знайоме обличчя – a familiar face)
- plural: знайомі (знайомі люди – familiar people)
So знайоме обличчя is the grammatically correct combination.
It works both ways:
Literally, it’s simply “familiar face”:
- знайоме – familiar
- обличчя – face
Idiomatically, it’s also a normal, common expression, just like “a familiar face” in English:
Коли я бачу знайоме обличчя… – “When I see a familiar face…”
So it is not a special idiom with a hidden meaning; it’s a transparent phrase that is also commonly used.
Бачу and побачу differ by aspect:
бачити → бачу (imperfective)
- focuses on the ongoing or repeated action
- “I see / I am seeing / I (usually) see”
побачити → побачу (perfective)
- focuses on the completed, one-time result
- “I will see / I will have seen (once)”
In the sentence:
Коли я бачу знайоме обличчя, мені хочеться посміхнутися.
This is about a general, repeated situation (“whenever I see a familiar face”), so Ukrainian uses the imperfective present: бачу. Using побачу would move it towards a concrete future event:
- Коли я побачу знайоме обличчя, я посміхнуся. – “When I see (once, in the future) a familiar face, I will smile.”
Ukrainian uses a comma to separate a subordinate clause from the main clause.
- Коли я бачу знайоме обличчя – subordinate clause (“when I see a familiar face”)
- мені хочеться посміхнутися – main clause (“I feel like smiling”)
Rule: a clause introduced by коли (when) is a subordinate clause and is normally separated by a comma from the main clause. That’s why the comma is necessary here.
This matches English punctuation:
When I see a familiar face, I feel like smiling.
The structure мені хочеться + infinitive is standard in Ukrainian to express “I feel like doing something”:
- Мені хочеться посміхнутися. – “I feel like smiling.”
- Мені хочеться відпочити. – “I feel like resting.”
So посміхнутися stays in the infinitive because it depends on хочеться, not on я as a personal subject.
If you say я посміхаюся, that’s a finite verb with an explicit subject:
- Коли я бачу знайоме обличчя, я посміхаюся. – “When I see a familiar face, I smile.”
Both are grammatical, but the original sentence emphasizes the inner impulse/mood (“I feel like smiling”), not the actual continuous action (“I (typically) smile”).
All are related to smiling, but they differ in aspect and style.
посміхнутися
- perfective (one-time, completed action)
- usually “to smile (once)” / “to give a smile”:
- Вона посміхнулася. – “She smiled (once).”
посміхатися
- imperfective (process, repeated, habitual)
- “to be smiling”, “to smile regularly”:
- Вона посміхалася всю розмову. – “She was smiling the whole conversation.”
усміхнутися / усміхатися
- variants with у-, slightly more bookish or dialectally preferred in some regions
- in many contexts they are interchangeable with посміхнутися/посміхатися.
In мені хочеться посміхнутися, the perfective посміхнутися fits because it’s about the desire to perform a single act of smiling at that moment.
Yes, that is perfectly natural in Ukrainian.
Ukrainian often omits subject pronouns when the verb form already shows the person and number clearly:
- Я бачу → Бачу (I see)
- Ти бачиш → Бачиш (You see)
So both are correct:
- Коли я бачу знайоме обличчя, мені хочеться посміхнутися.
- Коли бачу знайоме обличчя, мені хочеться посміхнутися.
The version without я sounds slightly more fluent and natural in everyday speech.
Ukrainian word order is flexible, though there is a neutral/default pattern.
Neutral here:
- Коли я бачу знайоме обличчя…
You can change the order, but it may sound more poetic, emphatic, or unusual:
- Коли знайоме обличчя я бачу… – emphasizes знайоме обличчя.
- Коли я знайоме обличчя бачу… – possible, but less natural than the original.
For learners, it’s best to stick to the neutral order:
Коли + [subject pronoun] + [verb] + [object].
Обличчя is pronounced approximately like ob-lých-cha:
- stress on -ли-: обли́ччя
- the double чч indicates a long, strong “ch” sound, something like a prolonged ч.
You do not pronounce two separate ч sounds; you just make the ч a bit longer and stronger. The я at the end palatalizes the final sound slightly and adds an -ya element.