Breakdown of Он хотел остановить меня, но не успел.
не
not
он
he / it (for a masculine noun) / it (for a neuter noun)
хотеть
to want
меня
me
но
but
успеть
to manage
остановить
to stop (someone, something)
Questions & Answers about Он хотел остановить меня, но не успел.
Why is it остановить and not остановиться?
Остановить means to stop someone or something else. Since he is trying to stop you (меня), we use the version without the -ся ending. If he wanted to stop himself (for example, to stop walking), he would use the reflexive verb остановиться.
Why do we use the perfective verb остановить after хотел instead of the imperfective останавливать?
When we talk about wanting to do a specific, single, completed action with a clear result, we use a perfective verb after хотеть. He wanted the result of successfully stopping you once, not the ongoing process of trying to stop you.
Does не успел mean he didn't succeed or he didn't have time?
Both! The perfective verb успеть means to have enough time to do something or to manage to do something in time. In this context, saying не успел means your action happened too fast for him to react, so he didn't manage to stop you in time.
The English translation says "did not manage", but doesn't Russian require saying what he didn't manage to do?
Not always. Since we just mentioned what he wanted to do (остановить меня), Russian drops the second infinitive to avoid repeating it. You could legally say но не успел остановить меня, but leaving it out is much more natural.
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