Russian Grammatical Tables

Russian Grammar

Russian, like most Slavic languages, is highly inflected. But what does inflection mean? An inflected word has been modified to indicate grammatical categories such as tense, mood, and voice for the verbs; case for the nouns, pronouns, and adjectives; and gender and number for all of those categories. The process is called conjugation for the verbs, and declension for the nouns, pronouns, and adjectives.

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All of the Indo-European languages exhibit inflection to some degree, although the general trend has been for the extent of declension to decrease over time. Old English was much more inflected than modern English.

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Modern English usually adds –s to a noun to indicate plural number. One dog, several dogs. But there is no declension of adjectives, no indication of case for the nouns, and modern English has no grammatical gender outside the pronouns. You say:

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	The black dog barks.	The black dogs bark.
Accusative	I see the black dog.	I see the black dogs.

Declension for case in English is limited to the pronouns:

Nominative	I see the dog.
Accusative	The dog sees me.
Genitive	My dog barks.
Dative	The dog brings me the ball.

Old English was much more inflected. Middle English and Modern English have lost more and more inflection, simplifying along the way. This trend is common across the Indo-European family of languages, with the exception of the Slavic languages. Bulgarian and Macedonian have lost most of the declension of adjectives and nouns, but otherwise the Slavic languages remain highly inflected.

Grammar

Nouns, pronouns, and adjectives decline through six cases in Russian. These analogies show that English has mostly lost case inflection. Also, Russian has no indefinite or definite articles (a, an, the):

Nominative — sentence subject:
The black dog barks.
I see the dog.

Accusative — direct object:
I see the black dog.
The dog sees me.

Genitive — "of" or possessive:
The bark of the black dog is loud.
This is my dog.

Prepositional — in, on, under:
The black dog is in the large house.
The dog is sitting on me.

Dative — indirect object:
Give the water to the black dog.
The dog brings the ball to me.

Instrumental — the means by which the subject accomplishes the action:
My sled is pulled by black dogs.
Pasternak was an author, this book was written by him.

Russian verbs are conjugated to indicate number and person. As this table of English analogies reminds us, Modern English has lost the distinction between singular and plural second person pronoun with the disappearance of the singular thee/thou.

	singular	plural
1st	I verb.	We verb.
2nd	You (singular) verb.	You (plural) verb.
3rd	He/she/it verbs.	They verb.

The verbs indicate tense in a simple system of past, present, and future.

There is also aspect, perfective and imperfective. Imperfective forms indicate that something was (or is, or will be) going on. It's not especially important to indicate if it was completed or not, the point is the ongoing activity:
I was painting the house.
I was going to town.
I listen to music while I work.
The professor will talk.

With the perfective form, the important point is that the act definitely was (or will be) completed.
I painted the house.
I went to town.
I heard the music.
The professor will announce the schedule.

Verbs can be transitive, taking a direct object — see, said — or intransitive, not acting on specific things — walk, talk.

Noun Declension

	Masc.	Neu.	Fem.	Plur.
				Masc:	Neu:	Fem:
Nom.	-Ø -й -ь	-о -е -ё	-а/я -ь	-ы/и	-а/я	-ы/и
Acc.	Inanimate: like nom. Animate: like gen.		-у/ю -ь	Inanimate: like nom. Animate: like gen.
Gen.	-а/я	-а/я , -ени	-ы/-и	-ов/ев, but -ж/ч/ш/щ/ь gets -ей	-Ø/й	-Ø/ь
Prep.	-е	-е , -ени	-е/и	-ах/ях
Dat.	-у/ю	-у/ю , -ени		-ам/ям
Inst.	-ом/ем	-ом/ем , -енем	-ой/ей -ью	-ами/ями

Exceptions to the nominative case endings listed above:

There are a few masculine nouns ending in -а/я. These are mostly:

• Proper nouns, often Russian versions of foreign names, e.g. Лука, or Luka.
• Many diminutives of Russian masculine names, e.g. Юра, diminutive of Юрий, or Ваня, diminutive of Иван.
• Names of family relations, e.g. дядя, or "uncle".
• So, see the classic piece of literature Дядя Ваня or Uncle Vanya.

Nouns ending in -ь can be either masculine or feminine:

• Nouns ending in any of ж, ч, ш, or щ followed by ь are feminine, e.g. дочь or "daughter", вещь or "thing". They take the -ью instrumental ending, as in под кроватью or under the bed.
• However, nouns ending in any of ж, ч, ш, or щ and not followed by ь are masculine.
• Nouns ending in -сть are almost always feminine, although a common exception is гость or "guest".
• Otherwise, look it up!

There are just ten neuter nouns ending in -мя, the most common are имя or "name", and время or "time".

Exceptions to the genitive case endings listed above:

A few feminine plural words end in -ей, e.g.: тётя —> тётей

Some neuter plural words end in й, e.g.: море —> морей, and здание —> зданий

Exceptions to the usual logic about gender include the handful of animate neuter nouns, which are categories rather than specific entities: дитя or child, животное or animal, существо or creature, божество or divinity, ничтожество or nonentity (when used about a person), and zoological categories such as млекопитающее or mammal, пресмыкающееся or reptile, and so on.

Adjective Declension

Personal Pronoun Declension

Interrogative Pronoun Declension

	who	what	whose
			Masc.	Neu.	Fem.	Plur.
Nom.	кто	что	чей	чьё	чья	чьи
Acc.	кого	что	чей / чьего	чьё	чью	чьи / чьих
Gen.	кого	чего	чьего	чьего	чьей	чьих
Prep.	ком	чём	чьём	чьём	чьей	чьих
Dat.	кому	чему	чьему	чьему	чьей	чьим
Inst.	кем	чем	чьим	чьим	чьей / чьею	чьими

As an adjective, "what" is какой and "which" is который. They decline like adjectives.

Possessive Pronoun Declension

These possessive pronouns do not decline:
his = его
her = её
their = их

Verbs — Present Tense

Verbs — Past Tense

For regular verbs, replace -ть with:
-л masculine singular
-ла feminine singular
-ло neuter singular
-ли plural

For reflexive verbs, make the ending:
-лся masculine singular
-лась feminine singular
-лось neuter singular
-лись plural

Verbs ending in -ти are exceptions, and do not generalize easily. See a detailed grammar or table of verb endings.

Verbs — Future Tense

Use the future tense of быть with the infinitive of the main verb.

буду	будем
будешь	будете
будет	будут

Suggested references

This page is intended for my use as a simple set of tables. For real answers, see:

The New Penguin Russian Course: A Complete Course for Beginners — Readable, it can answer my questions or remind me what I've forgotten.

A Comprehensive Russian Grammar — Far more than I will ever know...