Breakdown of Студентка очень старается, чтобы поступить в хороший университет.
студентка
student (f)
хороший
good
очень
very
в
in / to (direction)
университет
university
чтобы
in order to
стараться
to try hard
поступить
to enroll
Questions & Answers about Студентка очень старается, чтобы поступить в хороший университет.
Why do we use чтобы followed by an infinitive here?
The word чтобы means "in order to". When the same person is doing the action in both halves of the sentence (the student is trying, and the same student is enrolling), we follow чтобы with an infinitive verb like поступить. Notice that Russian always requires a comma before чтобы.
Why use the perfective verb поступить instead of the imperfective поступать?
The perfective aspect focuses on the successful completion of an action. Her goal isn't just the ongoing process of applying or taking entrance exams (поступать), but the final result of successfully getting accepted (поступить).
Why is it в хороший университет (accusative case) instead of using the prepositional case for location?
In Russian, enrolling is treated as a direction or movement into a place, so it takes в + the accusative case. Since университет is an inanimate masculine noun, its accusative form looks exactly like its nominative (dictionary) form, and the adjective хороший matches it.
Why does the verb старается end in -ся?
The verb стараться (to try or to make an effort) is a reflexive verb, meaning it always requires a reflexive ending. Because the conjugated "she" form старает ends in a consonant, we attach -ся instead of -сь.
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