Russian For Dummies

Some frequently used verbs, such as pomogat’ (puh-mah-gaht’; to help) and pozvonit’ (puh-zvah-neet’; to call), force the nouns that come after them into the dative case. The implication with these verbs in Russian is that you’re giving help or making a call to somebody, which suggests an indirect receiver of the action of the verb.

Instrumental case

As the name suggests, the instrumental case is often used to indicate the instrument that assists in the carrying out of an action. So, when you say that you’re writing a letter with a ruchka (rooch-kuh; pen), you have to put ruchka into the instrumental case, which is ruchkoj (rooch-kuhy).

Use the instrumental case after certain prepositions such as s (s; with), myezhdu (myezh-doo; between), nad (naht; over), pod (poht; below), and pyeryed (pye-reet; in front of). For more information on prepositions, see Chapter 15.

Prepositional case

Prepositional case got its name because it’s used only after certain prepositions. Older Russian textbooks often refer to it as the locative case, because it often indicates the location where the action takes place. No wonder it’s used with the prepositions v (v; in) and na (nah; on).

The prepositional case is also used after the prepositions o (oh; about) and ob (ohb; about). So when you say to that special someone, “I am constantly thinking about you,” make sure to put ty (tih; you; informal singular) in the prepositional case, which is tyebye (tee-bye): Ya postoyanno dumayu o tyebye (yah puhs-tah-ya-nuh doo-muh-yu uh tee-bye).

By the way, you may wonder why the English preposition “about” is translated by two different Russian equivalents: o and ob. For your information, o is used if the following word begins with a consonant. Use ob if the following word begins with a vowel.

Building Your Grammar Base with Nouns and Pronouns

Nouns and pronouns are the building blocks of any sentence. In the following sections, you find out about the three different genders for nouns. You also

Practice using this table. Take the word komp’yutyer (kahm-p’yu-tehr; computer). If you want to say “computers” in Russian, first ask yourself what the word komp’yutyer ends in: the consonant r. When you look at the first row and first column of Table 2-3, you see that if a noun ends in a consonant, to form the plural you need to add the letter y at the end. So “computers” in Russian is komp’yutyery (kahm-p’yu-teh-rih).

The rules in Table 2-3 have a few important exceptions. Some consonants, namely zh, sh, sh’, g, k, and kh, are very touchy. They just don’t tolerate the letter y after them and prefer an i instead. Take, for example, the word kniga (knee-guh; book). According to Table 2-3, kniga should replace the final -a with -y to form its plural. But the touchy g doesn’t tolerate the -y ending. It takes an -i ending instead. So the plural of kniga is knigi (knee-gee; books).

Changing plurals into the genitive case

Forming the plurals of nouns in the genitive case is a little trickier than in the other cases, so we deal with it first in Table 2-4.

Table 2-4 Forming the Plural of Nouns in the Genitive Case

(continued)

Now, try to apply Table 2-4 to a real-life situation. Imagine that your friend asks you whether you have a pencil: U tyebya yest’ karandash? (oo tee-bya yest’ kuh-ruhn-dahsh; Do you have a pencil?)

You, being by nature a very generous person, say that you have a lot of pencils, meaning that your friend is free to use all of them. It may come as a surprise to you, but when you make this statement, the word mnogo (mnoh-guh; many/a lot of) requires that the noun used with it take the genitive plural form. In your sentence, the word karandashi (kuh-ruhn-duh-shih; pencils) should take the form of genitive plural. What does Table 2-4 say about the ending -sh? That’s right; you need to add the ending -yej. You say U myenya mnogo karandashyej (oo mee-nya mnoh-guh kuh-ruhn-duh-shyey; I have many pencils).

Setting plurals into other cases

Table 2-5 shows how to form the plurals of nouns for all the other cases.

Imagine that you ask your friend, a Russian professor, whether he has a book that you want to borrow. It appears he does, but unfortunately, he can’t give it to you because he has already given it to his students. He says Ya dal knigu studyentam (ya dahl knee-goo stoo-dyen-tuhm; I gave the book to the students).

Why did your friend use the form studyentam? It’s the plural dative form of the word studyenty (stoo-dyen-tih; students), the indirect object of the sentence. The singular nominative form of this word is studyent (stoo-dyent), and he just added -am as shown in Table 2-5.

Picking out pronouns

Pronouns are words like he, she, and it. They’re used in place of nouns to refer to someone or something that’s already been mentioned. In the following sections, we show you the basic pronouns in Russian and how to place them into the correct cases. We also give you the scoop on possessive and interrogative pronouns.

Recognizing basic pronouns

Major Russian pronouns include the following:

ya (ya; I)

ty (tih; you; informal singular)

on (ohn; he)

ona (ah-nah; she)

my (mih; we)

vy (vih; you; formal singular and plural)

So what about “it”? In English, inanimate objects are usually referred to with the pronoun it, but in Russian, an inanimate object is always referred to with the pronoun corresponding to its grammatical gender. (For more about noun gender, see “Getting the lowdown on the gender of nouns” earlier in this chapter.) You translate the English pronoun it into Russian with one of these pronouns:

on (ohn) if the noun it refers to is masculine

ona (ah-nah) if the noun it refers to is feminine

ono (ah-noh) if the noun it refers to is neuter

oni (ah-nee) if the noun it refers to is plural

For example, in the phrase Eto moya mashina. Ona staraya (eh-tuh mah-ya muh-shih-nuh ah-nah stah-ruh-ye; That’s my car. It’s old), the pronoun it is translated as ona, because it refers to the Russian feminine noun mashina.

Placing basic pronouns into cases

Like nouns, Russian pronouns have different forms for all the cases. Table 2-6 shows the declension for pronouns.