Breakdown of Мой дядя решил стать поваром, потому что любит готовить.
мой
my (мой, моя, моё) / mine
любить
to love, to like
потому что
because
готовить
to cook
дядя
uncle
стать
to become
решить
to decide (perfective)
повар
cook
Questions & Answers about Мой дядя решил стать поваром, потому что любит готовить.
Why does the word for "cook" change to поваром here?
This is the main rule for the verb стать (to become). When you talk about becoming a profession, the profession must be in the Instrumental case. The dictionary form is повар (cook), and since it's a masculine noun ending in a consonant, we add -ом to get поваром.
Дядя ends in -я, which usually makes a noun feminine. Why does it use the masculine word Мой?
Even though дядя (uncle) has a feminine-looking ending, it obviously refers to a male person. Because of this, it is always treated as a masculine noun. That's why it takes the masculine possessive мой (my) rather than the feminine моя, and pairs with the masculine past-tense verb решил (decided).
The English translation says "because he loves to cook", but there is no он (he) in the Russian sentence. Where did it go?
In Russian, if the subject is the same in both halves of the sentence, you can often drop the pronoun to avoid repetition. We already know the uncle is the subject from the first half, so потому что любит is perfectly clear and natural for "because [he] loves".
Why is готовить left in its dictionary form instead of being conjugated to match the uncle?
When you pair a verb with another action, like "loves to do something" or "decided to do something", the second verb stays in the infinitive (dictionary form). Here, любит (loves) is already conjugated for "he", so готовить (to cook) simply attaches to it directly. You can also see this in the first half with решил стать (decided to become).
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