The Accusative: What You Want
Your second case is the one that carries desire: what you want, read, see, buy or love stands in the accusative. The best news in Russian grammar: most nouns don't visibly change at all.
The Direct Object
The accusative answers что? (what?) or кого? (whom?) after the verb:
Я читаю книгу.
I'm reading a book.
Note: книга → книгу: the book is what gets read, so it takes the accusative.
-а Becomes -у
The whole visible change: feminine nouns in -а/-я swap to -у/-ю.
Names in -а bend too — знает Анну, любит маму.
The Lazy Rest
Masculine things and neuter nouns keep their dictionary form:
хотеть — To Want
The verb of the lesson is famously irregular — it changes families mid-conjugation:
Common Mistakes
- Bending everything. Only feminine -а nouns visibly change: я читаю журналу is wrong — журнал stays put.
- Forgetting the swap under pressure. Я хочу вода slips out easily; want takes воду.
- Regularizing хотеть. Мы хочем doesn't exist — хотим, хотите, хотят.
What You Can Do Now
You can say what you want, read, see and love — with the right endings. Combined with the prepositional, you now handle both halves of daily life: where things happen, and what you want there.