Learn the basic facts concerning grammatical cases in Russian
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Intro |
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| Michael: How many grammatical cases are there in Russian? |
| Saodat: And how do they work? |
| Michael: At RussianPod101.com, we hear these questions often. Imagine the following scenario: Sasha Lee is confused about the number of cases in Russian. She asks a befriended teacher, Valentina Veselova, |
| "How many cases are there in Russian?" |
| Сколько падежей в русском языке? (Skol'ko padezhey v russkom yazyke?) |
| Dialogue |
| Саша Ли: Сколько падежей в русском языке? (Sasha Li: Skol'ko padezhey v russkom yazyke?) |
| Валентина Веселова: Шесть. (Valentina Veselova: Shest'.) |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Саша Ли: Сколько падежей в русском языке? (Skol'ko padezhey v russkom yazyke?) |
| Michael: "How many cases are there in Russian?" |
| Валентина Веселова: Шесть. (Shest'.) |
| Michael: "Six." |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: Russian may be one of the most difficult languages to learn, but, when it comes to grammatical cases, you won't have a lot of trouble with it since it only has a total of six cases. These are the nominative case: |
| Saodat: Именительный падеж (Imenitel'nyy padezh) |
| Michael: the genitive case, |
| Saodat: Родительный падеж (Roditel'nyy padezh) |
| Michael: the dative case, |
| Saodat: Дательный падеж (Datel'nyy padezh) |
| Michael: the accusative case, |
| Saodat: Винительный падеж (Vinitel'nyy padezh) |
| Michael: the instrumental case, |
| Saodat: Творительный падеж (Tvoritel'nyy padezh), |
| Michael: and the prepositional case. |
| Saodat: Предложный падеж (Predlozhnyy padezh) |
| Michael: The endings of Russian nouns change depending on the grammatical case they are in. Let's see some examples to understand this better, starting with the nominative case. |
| Saodat: Собака лает на незнакомца. (Sobaka layet na neznakomtsa.) |
| Michael: meaning "The dog barks at the stranger." Here, the noun "dog," or |
| Saodat: Собака (Sobaka), |
| Michael: which is the subject of the sentence is in the nominative case. In general, the nominative case answers the questions who and what, and is usually the subject in the sentence. You will observe that all nouns in Russian dictionaries are presented in the nominative case. Now, let's take a look at an example of a noun in the genitive case. In Russian, the genitive case answers the questions "whom," "of whom," "what," and "of what." It may show attribution, possession, or absence, depending on how it's used in a sentence. Sometimes, it answers the question "from where." |
| Saodat: У меня нет ручки. (U menya net ruchki.) |
| Michael: "I don't have a pen." In this sentence, the word for "pen" is in the genitive case. The nominative for "pen" is |
| Saodat: Ручка (Ruchka) |
| Michael: but, in this sentence, the ending has changed to |
| Saodat: -и (-i) |
| Michael: to indicate absence. |
| Saodat: Я достала из сумки телефон. (Ya dostala iz sumki telefon.) |
| Michael: "I took a phone out of my bag." In this case, the word for "bag" is in the genitive case, answering the question "from where." Here, the word |
| Saodat: сумка (sumka) |
| Michael: or "a bag" becomes |
| Saodat: сумки (sumki) |
| Michael: Now, let's see how the dative case works. |
| Saodat: Я повернулся к человеку рядом со мной. (Ya povernulsya k cheloveku ryadom so mnoy.) |
| Michael: "I turned to the person next to me." Here, the word for "person" is in the dative case. The dative case answers the question "to whom" or "to what." It also indicates that something is given to the object in the sentence. In this case, we see the word for "person," which is |
| Saodat: человек (chelovek) |
| Michael: becomes the word |
| Saodat: человеку (cheloveku) |
| Michael: or "to a person." Let's see how the accusative case works. In Russian, the accusative answers the questions "where," "whom," and "what." It's the equivalent of the objective case in English, which uses pronouns like "him" or "her." |
| Saodat: Продаю свой телефон. (Prodayu svoy telefon.) |
| Michael: "I am selling my phone." Here, the word for "phone" is the object of the sentence and is in the accusative case. Moreover, it doesn't change its form. This is not always the case, though. Here's an example where the ending of the word changes: |
| Saodat: Какую книгу нужно купить? (Kakuyu knigu nuzhno kupit'?) |
| Michael: "What book do you need to buy?" Here, the word for "book" is in the accusative case, and has changed its form from |
| Saodat: книга (kniga) |
| Michael: to |
| Saodat: книгу (knigu). |
| Michael: Moving on, let's see some examples of the instrumental case. This case answers the questions "with what" or "with whom," as shown in this sentence: |
| Saodat: Она интересуется музыкой (Ona interesuyetsya muzykoy.) |
| Michael: meaning "She's interested in music." The word for "music" is in the instrumental case. See how the ending changed, so that the word |
| Saodat: музыка (muzyka) |
| Michael: becomes |
| Saodat: музыкой (muzykoy). |
| Michael: Based on this example, we can see that the instrumental case can be used to talk about something a person is interested in, in addition to showing which instrument is used to do something. It can also be used to emphasize an occupation or profession, and in the grammar structure |
| Saodat: "с" |
| Michael: meaning "together with," as in |
| Saodat: Я иду в кино с мамой. (Ya idu v kino s mamoy.) |
| Michael: "I am going to the cinema with my mom." And, finally, we have the prepositional case, which answers the questions "about what," "about whom," and "where." |
| Saodat: Я буду там на рассвете. (Ya budu tam na rassvete.) |
| Michael: "I will be there at dawn." The word for "dawn" in the sentence is in the prepositional case. From its root form, which is |
| Saodat: pассвет (rassvet), |
| Michael: which means "dawn," it becomes |
| Saodat: рассвете (rassvete) |
| Michael: or "at dawn." |
| [Recall 1] |
| Michael: Let's take a closer look at the dialogue. |
| Do you remember how Sasha Lee says, "How many cases are there in Russian?" |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Saodat: Сколько падежей в русском языке? (Skol'ko padezhey v russkom yazyke?) |
| [Recall 2] |
| Michael: Now, let's take a look at our second sentence. |
| Do you remember how Valentina Veselova says "Six?" |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Saodat: Шесть. (Shest'.) |
| Michael: Aside from having six grammatical cases, the main difference between Russian and English is that Russian relies heavily on cases rather than grammatical constructions. That said, when mastering basic Russian, much of the learner's effort must be placed on mastering the six grammatical cases first. |
| [Summary] |
| Michael: In this lesson, you've learned that Russian has a total of six grammatical cases. These are the nominative case, |
| Saodat: Именительный падеж (Imenitel'nyy padezh), |
| Michael: the genitive case, |
| Saodat: Родительный падеж (Roditel'nyy padezh), |
| Michael: the dative case, |
| Saodat: Дательный падеж (Datel'nyy padezh), |
| Michael: the accusative case, |
| Saodat: Винительный падеж (Vinitel'nyy padezh), |
| Michael: the instrumental case, |
| Saodat: Творительный падеж (Tvoritel'nyy padezh), |
| Michael: and the prepositional case |
| Saodat: Предложный падеж (Predlozhnyy padezh). |
| Michael: You've also learned that the endings of Russian nouns change depending on the grammatical case they are in. |
| Expansion |
| Michael: We can't study Russian grammatical cases without touching on the subject of declensions, or |
| Saodat: Склонение (Skloneniye) |
| Michael: Declensions refer to the variation in the form of words by which their gender, number, and case are identified. All nouns in Russian grammar belong to one of three declension groups. We're not going into the details of Russian declensions here, but we'll take a look at some examples for you to understand how they generally work. The first declension includes almost all masculine and feminine nouns that end in |
| Saodat: a (a) |
| Michael: or |
| Saodat: я (ya) |
| Michael: Let's take the word "mom," for instance. The nominative for "mom" in Russian is |
| Saodat: мама (mama) |
| Michael: with no changes to the ending. The genitive form is |
| Saodat: мамы (mamy) |
| Michael: or "of mom," and the dative |
| Saodat: маме (mame) |
| Michael: or "to mom." Meanwhile, the accusative form is |
| Saodat: маму (mamu) |
| Michael: or "mom," and the instrumental form is |
| Saodat: мамой (mamoy) |
| Michael: or "by mom." Finally, the prepositional form is |
| Saodat: маме (mame) |
| Michael: or "about mom." The second declension group includes masculine nouns with zero endings and neuter words ending in |
| Saodat: e (ye) |
| Michael: or |
| Saodat: o (o) |
| Michael: Let's take the word "chair," for example. The nominative form of this word is |
| Saodat: стул (stul) |
| Michael: while the genitive is |
| Saodat: стула (stula) |
| Michael: or "of a chair." The dative is |
| Saodat: стулу (stulu) |
| Michael: or "to a chair," and the accusative is |
| Saodat: стул (stul) |
| Michael: or "a chair." The instrumental form is |
| Saodat: стулом (stulom) |
| Michael: or "by a chair," and the prepositional is |
| Saodat: стуле (stule) |
| Michael: or "about a chair." And, finally, we have the third declension group, which includes all other feminine nouns. Let's use the word "night" as our example, starting with the nominative, which is |
| Saodat: ночь (noch') |
| Michael: Next, for the genitive, we have |
| Saodat: ночи (nochi) |
| Michael: or "of a night." The dative is similar, |
| Saodat: ночи (nochi). |
| Michael: Although this time, it means "to a night." And, for the accusative, we have |
| Saodat: ночь (noch') |
| Michael: or "a night." The instrumental form is |
| Saodat: Ночью (noch'yu) |
| Michael: is "by night." And, finally, for the prepositional form, we have |
| Saodat: ночи (nochi) |
| Michael: or "about a night." Take note that this is only for the singular form of the noun, but this shows us that declensions, much like the cases, work by replacing the ending of the root word. |
| Cultural Insight |
| Michael: Here's a final tip in familiarizing yourself with the six Russian cases. The nominative case, or |
| Saodat: Именительный падеж (Imenitel'nyy padezh), |
| Michael: is often used as the subject of the verb in a sentence. The genitive case |
| Saodat: Родительный падеж (Roditel'nyy padezh) |
| Michael: is often used in possessive constructions. The dative case |
| Saodat: Дательный падеж (Datel'nyy padezh) |
| Michael: is often used in a sentence as the indirect object of a verb. On the other hand, the accusative case, or |
| Saodat: Винительный падеж (Vinitel'nyy padezh), |
| Michael: is often used as the direct object of a verb. Meanwhile, the instrumental case, or |
| Saodat: Творительный падеж (Tvoritel'nyy padezh), |
| Michael: is often used to express the means by which the subject in the sentence accomplishes the action of the verb. And, finally, the prepositional case, or |
| Saodat: Предложный падеж (Predlozhnyy padezh), |
| Michael: is used as the object of certain prepositions. Keep these simple rules in mind, and you'll have an easier time mastering the Russian grammatical cases we've learned in this lesson! |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We're here to answer them! |
| Saodat: Пока! (Poka!) |
| Michael: See you soon! |
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