Russian Cases: Conjugate Russian Nouns, Pronouns and Adjectives like a Pro. Rules, Conjugation Tables, Exercises, Keys: 2nd Edition

By Darya Gunay

Cases are the backbone of the Russian sentence structure. However, for many Russian language learners, cases remain a stumbling stone. This is because nouns, pronouns, and adjectives conjugate in Russian (change their endings) which makes these words look different within a text.
The good news is: you can actually learn the conjugation rules and understand the context for using each case.
Everything else you learn in Russian will group around cases, just like the walls of a house are built on its foundation.
You’ll be able to conjugate - and speak Russian - like a PRO!

This e-book will help you understand the Russian case system. It will also give you numerous examples of word combinations, full sentences, as well as idiomatic expressions with only 1 static case possible alongside their English translation. Overall, you will learn 500+ words from basic Russian vocabulary.
This 2nd edition is significantly improved based on readers' feedback: tables are enlarged, more examples are given.

Each chapter dedicated to a specific case describes the exact situations when each case is used backed by color-coded conjugation tables (tables with endings and examples), which you can always keep handy and return to.

A special focus is put on immediate practice: you will find short exercises at the end of each chapter along with the keys. This will help you put the newly-acquired knowledge into action and check if you understood everything correctly.

Complementary chapters give an overview of the gender system of Russian nouns and their plural forms.
Russian adjectives; personal and possessive pronouns, and their conjugation in all Russian cases now have separate chapters.

The book also now features a very useful bonus – a text in Russian where each noun is "decoded" to illustrate the use of cases within phrases. This way you can go back to the book chapters and review the usage.

"Russian Cases: Conjugate Russian Nouns, Pronouns, and Adjectives Like a Pro" is probably the most comprehensive resource on Russian cases you may come across. Keep it nearby and refer to it when necessary. Happy learning!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Darya Gunay
• Release date: Nov 29, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005041649

Darya Gunay

Dear readers, welcome to my author's page! My name is Darya Gunay. I hold Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Language Teaching (specialization – Ukrainian and English). I am also certified as a Teacher of Russian as a Foreign Language by the International Centre of Russian Language in Moscow.Born and raised in Eastern Ukraine, I speak fluent Russian and Ukrainian.Following my passion for languages and e-learning, I founded ExpressRussian.com - an educational website that provides materials for Russian language learning available for self-study, as well as tutor-guided courses.Join my social media community on Tiktok, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook to never miss fun educational content and train your language skills.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Dear Russian language learners, you are about to unlock the most important subject in the Russian grammar. This book will help you tackle one of the most challenging topics in the Russian language right away (for beginners) and/or systematize your knowledge of Russian cases (for not-complete-beginners).

Let me start by saying that cases are the backbone of the Russian sentence structure. Therefore, once you understand the conjugation rules, the context and the reason why each case is used, all your subsequent efforts to learn Russian will come with ease. Everything else you learn will group around cases, just like the walls or other elements of a house stay attached to its foundation. You’ll be able to conjugate in Russian like a PRO!

Each chapter describes the exact situations when each case is used backed by color-coded conjugation tables (tables with endings and examples), which you can always keep handy and return to. Also, each chapter dedicated to a specific case has a homework section to reinforce and apply your knowledge right away. Keys to exercises are provided at the end of the book.

This book features a very useful bonus – a text in Russian where each noun is underlined and its gender and case are stated in the brackets. This is done to illustrate the use of cases within phrases, so you can go back to the book chapters and review the usage. I used the original text of Steve Jobs Stanford speech with Russian translation side by side, like this:

Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.

Не позволяйте шуму (Masc., Dat.Sing.) чужих мнений (Neuter, Gen.Pl.) перебить ваш внутренний голос (Masc., Acc.Sing.).

Thanks to this bonus, you will also enrich your Russian vocabulary by 1,000 words.

CONJUGATION IN RUSSIAN

Why do we need cases in the first place? Cases explain the relationship, or logical connection, between words in a phrase. This is done in combination with prepositions - most of the time, but very often - without.

The most important thing to take into consideration is: in Russian, nouns conjugate in number, gender, and case. For comparison, in most Indo-European languages, gender and number are still common, however, cases are a thing of the past. Modern English, for example, has largely lost its inflected case system (one can see the remaining of it in personal pronouns, e.g. I-me, she-her) and relies solely on prepositions, such as to, in, from, with, etc. However, many languages of the world, including Russian, still have extensive case systems.

What’s more, in Russian, not only nouns, but also pronouns and adjectives conjugate. In other words, nouns, pronouns, adjectives change their endings according to their case, as well as their gender and number.

There are 6 cases in Russian:

• Nominative (именительный) (Nom.)

• Genitive (родительный) (Gen.)

• Dative (дательный) (Dat.)

• Accusative (винительный) (Acc.)

• Instrumental (творительный) (Instr.)

• Prepositional (предложный) (Prep.)

In this book, we will discover cases in a slightly different order, we will proceed according to their frequency in use in the real-life language. We will start with Nominative and Accusative (there is often a confusion between them, therefore it is better to learn them one after another). Then we will pass on to Genitive and Prepositional (they can also be tricky because both may be used to speak of a direction), and we will finish with less frequent ones – Dative and Instrumental.

Topic Cases is closely related to topic Genders of Russian nouns and Plural Form of Russian nouns, because even in the same case, nouns of different gender and number will have different endings. That is why it is important to understand the concept of gender and singular / plural form of a noun before studying the Russian case system.

To have an idea about genders in Russian, I recommend you read the complementary chapter Genders of Russian nouns (next one).

GENDERS OF RUSSIAN NOUNS

In Russian, all nouns fall into 3 genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. All nouns are also split into animate (everything alive) and inanimate (not alive). Note: in Russian, not all nouns denoting inanimate objects are neuter; some are masculine and some are feminine.

Unlike other languages, where there are no rules or regularities as for gender pattern, in Russian it is quite simple to know which gender a noun belongs to.

The gender of a noun can generally be determined by its last letter. Let’s see how one can determine the gender of a Russian nouns by paying attention to the last letter.

To masculine gender belong:

Nouns ending in a consonant or -ь

Стул (chair), карандáш (pencil), музéй (museum), соловéй (nightingale), фонáрь (lantern), слéсарь (mechanic)

To feminine gender belong:

Nouns ending in -a, -я, -ь

Рекá (river), собáка (dog), пéсня (song), ня́ня (nanny), тетрáдь (notebook), дочь (daughter)

To neuter gender belong:

Nouns ending in -о, -е, -мя

Окнó (window), пóле (field), врéмя (time)

Note: nouns ending in -а, -я with a clear meaning of masculine gender, are exceptions: па́па (father), дя́дя (uncle), Валéра, Вáся (Valera, Vasya – masculine names). They will belong to the masculine gender, but will conjugate like words of feminine gender (see case-related endings).

Which gender for nouns ending in –ь?

As you have seen from paragraphs above, nouns ending in -ь can belong either to the masculine or feminine gender.

How do you tell the difference? For these nouns, it’s best if you learn the gender by heart or check in a dictionary.

Reviews for Russian Cases

[Travis · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wow! If I only knew about this book sooner! Gets straight to the point and puts Russian grammar into layman's terms plus includes exercises to put into application. Best Russian grammar book that you will find!