Cases in Russian

22 мая 2019

Russian grammar uses the case system. The case system is also used in languages like Latin, Greek and German. In fact it was also used in Old English. In Russian there are six cases. To help you understand what cases are we will compare them to English...

In English the subject of the sentence must be first noun. For example...

‘Ivan gives flowers to Anna’. (Иван даёт цветы Анне)

In English it makes no sense to swap the position of the words ‘Ivan’ and ‘flowers’. The meaning of the sentence would be completely changed. In Russian it is possible to change the order of these words, and still keep the same meaning. You may wish to do this to emphasise something. Although it is common in Russian to use a similar word order to English. The Russian word’s position is not so important because it’s meaning in the sentence is indicated by it’s case. To indicate each case we change the ending of word. Lets look at the six cases (You don’t need to remember this yet):

Nominative case: The subject of the sentence. (“Ivan”)
Accusative case: The object of the sentence. (“flowers”)
Dative case: The indirect object of the sentence (“Anna”)
Genitive case: Indicates ownership. (Eg. “Anna’s flowers”)
Instrumental case: Indicates ‘with’ or ‘by means of’. (“Anna writes with a pencil”)
Prepositional case: Used after certain propositions. (In, on, at, and about.)

For example the word Anna in the six different cases would be:

Nominative case: Анна
Accusative case: Анну
Dative case: Анне (to Anna)
Genitive case: Анны (Anna’s)
Instrumental case: Анной (with Anna)
Prepositional case: Анне (about Anna)

We will teach you how to form the cases over the next few lessons so don’t worry too much now. It is just important to understand that case effectively gives a word its meaning in the sentence.

Understanding the case system is often one of the biggest hurdles for people learning Russian, so we will take it slowly. Once the case system is understood the Russian language will really open up to you, and we can concentrate more on vocabulary. Our lessons are designed for English speakers so we will not assume much knowledge of grammar.

It’s important not to worry much about the fine details of grammar at first. You will learn it more naturally when you start using Russian. Remember that Russian children all learnt to speak Russian before they understood any grammar. Just try to get a good general overview of the grammar.

Interestingly, some remnants of the case system still exist in English, especially pronouns. For example we must use ‘me’ instead of ‘I’ when not the subject.