GCSE Russian Edexcel

Grammar: Nouns

Gender of Nouns

• In Russian, every noun has a gender: masculine, feminine, or neuter.
• Most masculine nouns end with a consonant or a й.
• Feminine nouns often end with а or я.
• Neuter nouns usually end with о or е.
• Nouns ending with ь could be either masculine or feminine.

Noun Cases

• Russian language has six cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, and prepositional.
• The nominative case is the subject of the sentence.
• Use the genitive case to indicate possession, to describe characteristics, to show part of a whole, following certain verbs, prepositions, and expressions.
• The dative case is used to show the indirect object, to indicate age, or after certain verbs and expressions.
• The accusative case is used for the direct object of the verb. It can also be used after certain prepositions.
• Use the instrumental case to indicate a tool or means of doing something, to talk about companionship, or following certain verbs and prepositions.
• The prepositional case is always used after prepositions, generally when specifying location or speaking abstractly.

Plurals of Nouns

• Most Russian nouns form the plural by replacing the singular ending with a plural one.
• The pattern varies depending on the gender and whether the noun ends in a consonant, а/я or о/е.
• Beware of irregular plurals, as they don't follow the regular patterns.