Breakdown of Моя младшая сестра хочет стать экономистом.
сестра
sister
мой
my / mine
хотеть
to want
младший
younger
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?