Breakdown of Они не хотят делать много ошибок.
не
not
они
they
делать
to do
много
a lot
хотеть
to want
ошибка
mistake
Questions & Answers about Они не хотят делать много ошибок.
Why is the word for mistakes "ошибок" instead of "ошибки"?
Because of the word много (many). Words that express a specific or indefinite quantity require the noun that follows them to be in the Genitive case. Since we are talking about multiple mistakes, we must use the Genitive plural form ошибок.
How is the Genitive plural ошибок formed from ошибка? Where did the extra "о" come from?
For feminine nouns ending in -а like ошибка, the Genitive plural is usually made by dropping the -а to leave a "zero ending". Doing this to ошибка leaves the awkward consonant combination -бк. To make it easier to pronounce, Russian inserts a "fleeting vowel" о between those consonants, giving us ошибок.
I remember learning that "they want" is an exception. Why is хотят irregular?
The verb хотеть (to want) is a mixed conjugation verb. In the singular forms, it uses Type I (e-conjugation) endings like ты хочешь. But in the plural, it unexpectedly switches to Type II (i-conjugation) endings. That is why "they want" takes the Type II ending -ят to become они хотят.
Why do we use делать (to do) instead of a different word for "to make"?
In Russian, the verbs "to do" and "to make" are typically both covered by the single verb делать. Word pairings can differ between languages; in English you "make" a mistake, but in Russian you literally "do" a mistake (делать ошибку).
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