Just in Case: A Very Basic Introduction to the Russian Case System

The Russian language performs in an inherently different way than English. This is one of the major hurdles for most English speakers, and one of several reasons the language seems “hard” to us. Where English tells you how a word functions by placing it in a very specific order in a sentence, Russian changes the endings of the word and doesn’t worry as much about placement. This is what we mean when we talk about “cases.”

But First: English Cases

That said, English does actually have a few cases (or residues of cases). Let’s talk about them briefly because it might make the Russian case system seem a little less bewildering. The most recognizable (and most talked about) is how we change personal pronouns in English depending on whether it’s the subject or object of a sentence. The same holds true for possessive pronouns (more on possessive in just a second).

Subject	Object	Possessive
I	me	my
you	you	your
he	him	his
she	her	her/hers
we	us	our
they	them	their/theirs

Additionally, (and this is my favorite because, to me, it’s even more similar to Russian cases) we change the endings for possessive words. We add ’s to any word to indicate ownership. This is directly comparable to the Genitive Case in Russian. So we might say “Tom’s cat” or “Jackie’s purse” to indicate ownership or possession. In Russian, they also change the endings of these words (to the Genitive Case endings).

So now you know that the cases aren’t as foreign as they seem at first. We just brush over them in English because we don’t have any full cases, just quirky little residues. Without further ado, let’s talk about the case system in Russian.

Russian Has Six Cases

Russian utilizes six cases. I know this sounds like a lot, but it could be worse - Finnish has 15 cases! I’m going to talk about each in the order I think it makes the most sense to learn them as an English speaker. Practically every book I pick up goes through them in a different order, so learn them however feels most natural to you. Once you’ve learned these basic uses, go back through each one in more detail (linked in the headings). (coming soon)

Nominative Case - This is your basic form. It’s the Subject of a sentence and how you’ll find nouns listed in dictionaries.

Accusative Case - These are your Direct Objects. This is a relatively easy and straightforward case to learn and can help you make more complex sentences quickly, so I recommend this as the first case to learn endings for (remember that all your word lists will be in Nominative Case, so you basically learn that by default). Sometimes, Accusative Case is also used for the object of a preposition.

Dative Case - This is your Indirect Object.

Prepositional Case - This one is pretty self-explanatory. It’s the form words take that follow prepositions like в and на. In English, we would call it the “Object of the Preposition” and most of us probably don’t even notice we use it. Unfortunately, the Accusative Case and Genitive Case are also sometimes used for the object of a preposition, but not everything can be straightforward in our language learning journey. Just start with the cases separately and then come back to figure out which case goes with preposition after you’ve learned the basic endings and how to recognize which case is being used when you see it written.

Instrumental Case - The Instrument of the Action. This is not an intuitive case to me, and I considered listing it last for that reason. I ended up putting it here simply because it has fewer uses than the Genitive.

Genitive Case - This is actually a very important case. It does a lot of things. But that also makes it very confusing and nuanced, at least for me, so I personally recommend saving it for last. That said, if you are using Duolingo to structure your Russian language learning, you will have to hit it head on. (And if you want a study schedule to help you with that, you can find one here.) (coming soon)

The main function of Genitive Case is to show possession. It’s equivalent to ‘s added to words in English. Focus on this one use at first, then add on its additional uses:

• After certain prepositions

• When we might say “of” in English

• Sometimes numbers need to be in the Genitive Case

• After “quantitative adverbs” and the question word сколько (“how much/how many”)

• …and more! (Seriously, I’m going to stop listing because I’m getting frustrated just thinking about all the uses.)

I want to tell you to use the Genitive Case as a catch-all for when the other cases don’t fit, but I think that’s probably oversimplifying and simply not true. So, although it’s tempting to think of it that way, don’t do it.

What About Declension?

Declension is just a fancy (*cough* intimidating *cough*) way to say "change the endings of words to change cases." Nouns, pronouns, and adjectives all decline, but there are a few categories of words that don’t:

• Loan words from other languages are indeclinable (i.e., they don’t change when they change case)

• Abbreviations

• A few other words that don’t follow a declension pattern.

Declension is broken into three groups called First Declension, Second Declension, and Third Declension. It’s just a way of separating them by endings and making things more predictable. First, Second, and Third doesn't actually imply any sort of order, which is what I thought for a very long time.

First Declension	Feminine and Masculine words ending in А and Я
Second Declension	Neuter words and Masculine words not ending in А or Я (so most Masculine words)
Third Declension	All other Feminine Words (so any not ending in А or Я)

Keep in mind that sometimes you'll encounter words in the plural (with endings Ы or И), which adds another layer to work through, but for now it's enough to just know to look out for it.

Now Go Learn!

So there you have it: a very, very basic overview of the case system. I recommend learning the uses listed here first. After that, focus on learning the endings for each case one by one and practice declining them in examples or exercises. Once you’ve got the main uses and endings down, then focus on the smaller details (like alllllllll the uses of the Genitive Case).

And just think, once you’ve mastered the case system, you’ll have tackled the single most intimidating aspect of Russian grammar (in my opinion at least).