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.