Questions & Answers about Я хочу пообедать в кафе.
Since we are learning the past tense, how would I change this sentence to say 'I wanted to have lunch'?
You would change the verb хочу (I want) to the past tense. For a male speaker, it becomes Я хотел пообедать в кафе, and for a female speaker, Я хотела пообедать в кафе. The second verb (пообедать) stays in its dictionary form.
Why does пообедать end in -ть?
Because it is an infinitive, which is the dictionary form of a verb meaning 'to have lunch'. Just like in English where we say 'I want TO HAVE lunch', in Russian, the action verb following хочу (I want) stays in this base form.
The word кафе follows the preposition в (in), so shouldn't its ending change to show location?
Usually, yes! To show location, most Russian nouns change their ending. However, кафе is a borrowed foreign word. In Russian, many borrowed words ending in -е, -о, or -и are indeclinable, meaning their spelling never changes regardless of the grammar rules around them.
I have seen the word обедать for having lunch. Why is it пообедать here?
Both mean 'to have lunch.' Adding the prefix по- makes the verb focus on the completed result of the action (a one-time, finished lunch) rather than the ongoing process. After 'I want to', Russians usually use this completed form because you desire the result of having eaten.