Breakdown of Моя младшая сестра хочет стать экономистом.
сестра
sister
мой
my / mine
хотеть
to want
младший
younger
стать
to become
экономист
economist
Questions & Answers about Моя младшая сестра хочет стать экономистом.
Why is the word for economist spelled экономистом instead of экономист?
This is the Instrumental case. When you talk about taking up a profession using the verbs быть (to be) or стать (to become), Russian requires the Instrumental case. Since экономист is a masculine noun ending in a consonant, we add the ending -ом.
Since the sister is female, shouldn't there be a feminine version of экономист?
In Russian, many profession words like экономист, врач (doctor), or инженер (engineer) only have a masculine form. You use this exact same masculine word for both men and women. That is why it takes the masculine Instrumental ending -ом here, even though she is a woman!
I remember the verb to want being tricky. Why is it хочет here?
The verb хотеть (to want) is irregular. We use хочет because my younger sister is a she (third-person singular). As a quick refresher, this verb mixes patterns: it uses e-style endings in the singular (ты хочешь, он/она хочет) but и-style endings in the plural (мы хотим, они хотят).
How do we know to use младшая instead of another form for younger?
Младшая is an adjective describing the feminine noun сестра. Because сестра is the subject of the sentence (Nominative case), the adjective must match its gender and case. The feminine Nominative ending for this adjective is -ая.
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