Word
Я хочу открыть счёт в этом банке.
Meaning
I want to open an account at this bank.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about Я хочу открыть счёт в этом банке.
Why is the perfective verb открыть used here instead of the imperfective открывать?
After verbs of wanting like хотеть, we use the perfective aspect if the goal is a specific, one-time, completed result. You want to achieve the result of opening the account, not do it repeatedly or focus on the process.
Does счёт just mean bank account, or can it be used in other situations?
Счёт is a very versatile word! Besides a bank account, it is the standard word for a bill in a restaurant. It can also mean the score in a sports game or a mathematical count.
Why doesn't the word счёт change its ending here even though it is the direct object?
It is in the accusative case, but because счёт is an inanimate masculine noun, its accusative form is exactly the same as its nominative (dictionary) form.
Why do we use в rather than на for 'at this bank'?
Even though English says 'at this bank', Russian treats a bank as a physical enclosed institution or building. Therefore, it takes the preposition в (in) followed by the prepositional case (в этом банке).