As with all languages, understanding nouns is rather important: they form the structure of the entire language. In Russian, nouns are categorized into three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. For all intents and purposes, plural could also be considered its own gender, but you will only need to know that when you begin to deal with verbs and adjectives.
In general, masculine nouns end in a consonent, ь, and й; feminine nouns end in а, я, ия, and ь; and neuter nouns end in о, е, ье, and ие.
| Masculine Examples | Feminine Examples | Neuter Examples |
|---|---|---|
| карандаш (pencil) | рыба (fish) | масло (butter) |
| автомобиль (car) | неделя (week) | поле (field) |
| герой (hero) | армия (army) | воскресенье (Sunday) |
| жизнь (life) | желание (desire) |
An important thing to note about Russian is that there are no articles like there are in English. In other words, a Russian word like "книга" can mean "a book," "the book," or simply "book" in English.
Another important thing to note about the Russian language is that its system of grammar utilizes something known as a case system. Although a case system is evident in English (i.e., the difference in use between "I," "me," and "mine"), it is nowhere as complex and encompassing as the Russian case system. In basic terms, Russian nouns take on different endings depending on their grammatical function within the sentence. Where English nouns depend upon their position in sentences to determine their function, Russian nouns depend upon their endings.
All nouns presented here will be in the singular. Plural nouns have different endings than singular ones, but those endings will not be taught here.
There are six cases in Russian: the nominative, genitive, accusative, dative, prepositional, and instrumental. All of these will be elaborated upon later. The nominative case is the most basic and nouns have been written in it above. The nominative case is the basic case and nouns in the nominative case are the subjects of the sentence.
The genitive case is used when an object owns another and the concept is directly relatable to the addition of "'s" or "s'" to the end of a word to give it possession over another word. Another way to think about the genitive case is to use the word "of." For example, "бумага" means "paper," "книга" means "book," and "бумага книги" means "paper of the book" or "the book's paper." Notice how the word "книга" changed to "книги" to show that it was possessive; that is an example of how the case system works.
The endings for the genitive case are as follows:
| Masculine | Feminine | Neuter |
|---|---|---|
| -а, -я | -ы, -и | -а, -я |
| карандаш → карандаша | рыба → рыбы | масло → масла |
| герой → героя | неделя → недели | поле → поля |
| автомобиль → автомобиля | армия → армии | воскресенье → воскресенья |
| жизнь → жизни | желание → желания |
An important thing to note is that if a nominative noun ends in а, э, и, о, and у, use the first genitive endings; if the nominative noun ends in я, е, й, ё, ю, or ь, use the second endings. This rule holds throughout all of the cases, so multiple endings will be provided for every case.
The direct object of a sentence is written in the accusative case. Unlike any other case, however, the ending of a masculine noun in this case depends on whether it is animate or inanimate.
The accusative endings are as follows:
| Masculine | Feminine | Neuter |
|---|---|---|
| Animate: -а, -я; Inanimate: use nominative noun | -у, -ю; -ь in nominative: use nominative noun | Use nominative noun |
| карандаш → карандаш | рыба → рыбу | масло → масло |
| герой → героя | неделя → неделю | поле → поле |
| автомобиль → автомобиль | армия → армию | воскресенье → воскресенье |
| жизнь → жизнь | желание → желание |
The indirect object of the sentence is written in the dative case.
The dative endings are as follows:
| Masculine | Feminine | Neuter |
|---|---|---|
| -у, -ю | -е; -ия, -ь in nominative: -и | -у, -ю |
| карандаш → карандашу | рыба → рыбе | масло → маслу |
| герой → герою | неделя → неделе | поле → полю |
| автомобиль → автомобилю | армия → армии | воскресенье → воскресенью |
| жизнь → жизни | желание → желанию |
When using prepositions like "in" or "on," the nouns that the other objects in the sentnce are in or on has to be in the prepositional case. Unfortunately, not every preposition requires the use of the prepositional case. Several prepositions require the use of other cases like the genitive or accusative, so the case that each specific preoposition requires has to be memorized.
The prepositional endings are as follows:
| Masculine | Feminine | Neuter |
|---|---|---|
| -е | -е; -ия, -ь in nominative: -и | -е; -ие in nominative: -и |
| карандаш → карандаше | рыба → рыбе | масло → масле |
| герой → герое | неделя → неделе | поле → поле |
| автомобиль → автомобиле | армия → армии | воскресенье → воскресенье |
| жизнь → жизни | желание → желании |
Nouns that are used by something else are written in the instrumental case, hence when you say "I'm writing with a pencil," you would say "Пишу с карандашом" instead of "Пишу с карандаш" in Russian.
The odd part about this case is that it is used to also indicate periods of time, so the word "утром" (the nominative of утро [morning]) means "during the morning" or "in the morning." Words such as "evening," "night," "summer," "winter," etc. can be written in the instrumental to asssume that the actions of the sentence occured during those periods of time.
The instrumental endings are as follows:
| Masculine | Feminine | Neuter |
|---|---|---|
| -ом, -ем, -ём | -ой, -ей, -ёй; -ь in nominative: -ью | -ом, -ем |
| карандаш → карандашом | рыба → рыбой | масло → маслом |
| герой → героем | неделя → неделей | поле → полем |
| автомобиль → автомобилем | армия → армией | воскресенье → воскресеньем |
| жизнь → жизнью | желание → желанием |
After the basic rule of the case system are learned, then sentences can be put together by learning how to conjugate verbs.