СУЩЕСТВИТЕЛЬНОЕ, ПРИЛАГАТЕЛЬНОЕ, МЕСТОИМЕНИЕ… – JUST THE LONGEST RUSSIAN WORDS OR SOMETHING YOU REALLY NEED TO KNOW?

When it comes up to the Russian language grammar most of the students are confused even before the teacher starts showing declinations of Russian words. The first thing that confuses is what’s существительное, прилагательное, местоимение, why do they have to decline differently in the Russian language?

Let’s see… Существительное (noun) is a word that identifies a person, a thing or a place. If you can put a question “What” or “Who” and get this word as an answer – that’s a noun (существительное)! For example, “Твоя чёрная сумка там” (Your black bag is there) –> What is there? –> bag. Bag is существительное (noun) in this sentence.

Прилагательное (adjective) is a word that describes, identifies or further defines a noun. For example, in the sentence above the adjective is чёрная: What kind (color) bag is there? –> black bag.

Pronouns in Russian fall into many groups. There are personal pronouns (я, ты, он, она, оно, мы, вы, они), possessive pronouns (мой, твой, наш, ваш, его, её, их), demonstrative pronouns (этот, тот). So, a pronoun is a word that can function as a noun phrase used by itself and that refers either to the participants in the discourse (e.g. я, ты) or to someone or something mentioned elsewhere in the discourse (e.g. этот). In our sentence the pronoun is твоя (your).

In Russian, adjectives and demonstrative / possessive pronouns must agree with a noun that they are describing. So, if the noun is in Genitive plural, adjectives and pronouns must be also in Genitive plural.

Look at the examples and analyze the changes of the pronouns, adjectives and nouns.

All in masculine (Nominative case): Мой телефон красивый. Моя телефон красивый. Моё телефон красивое.

All in feminine (Nominative case): Моя сумка красивая.

All in neuter (Nominative case): Моё пальто красивое.

All in plural (Nominative case): Мои книги красивые.

Nominative case: Это моя умная кошка. (It’s my smart cat)

Genitive case: У моей умной кошки красивые глаза. (My smart cat has beautiful eyes)

Dative case: Моей умной кошке 3 года. (My smart cat is 3 years old)

Accusative case: Я люблю мою умную кошку. (I love my smart cat)

Instrumental case: Я горжусь моей умной кошкой. (I am proud of my smart cat)

Prepositional case: Я много думаю  о моей умной кошке. (I think much about my smart cat)

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