Russian Grammar

Declensions
To download your FREE Declension of Adjectives sheet, click here
To download your FREE Declensions of Names sheet, click here
Formation of Adjectives from Nouns
Declension of Adjectives
Russian Names
Declension of Russian and Foreign Male and Female Names

Formation of Adjectives from Nouns

Nouns in English may be modified by adjectives (example: legal newspaper) or by nouns (law teacher). In Russian only adjectives can modify nouns, which means that nouns (and verbs in order to form a participle) must be converted to adjectives before they can modify nouns. For example, in English you can say “spring flowers” but in Russian the word весна (spring) must first be converted to an adjective, весенний, before this phrase is possible: весенние цветы.

The best way to form adjectives is by intuition, but since it takes years of learning language to develop such intuition, the best way to form Russian adjectives is: a) to know how adjectives can be formed (see below) and b) to look up adjectives in the dictionary until you build up a solid vocabulary and will be able to “feel” which one of the following three methods can be used.

Adjectives in Russian are formed with the help of the following suffixes.

1. Stem of a noun + suffix “н” + ending:

cевер - северный
друг - дружный
восток - восточный
река - речной
книга - книжный

2. Stem of a noun + suffix “ск” + ending:

город - городской
дети - детский
русь - русский

3. The formation of adjectives with other suffixes (-ов, -ам, -шн, -енн and others) is also possible:

завтра - завтрашний
искусство - искусственный
бронза - бронзовый

Declension of Adjectives

Feminine Adjectives

Declension of Feminine Adjectives with the Stem in a Hard or Soft Consonant

Declension of Feminine Adjectives with the Stem in ж , ч , ш , щ

Masculine and Neuter Adjectives

Declension of Masculine and Neuter Adjectives in the Singular with the Stem in a Hard or Soft Consonant

In the nominative, masculine adjectives with stressed endings take the ending - ой : молодой , большой .

Adjectives which modify animate nouns take the same endings in the accusative as in the genitive. Adjectives which modify inanimate masculine or neuter nouns take the same endings as in the nominative.

Masculine and neuter adjectives with the stem in г, к or x change in the same way as adjectives with the stem in a hard consonant in all cases except the nominative and the instrumental, in which they take и instead of ы: русский язык, русским языком.

 Masculine and Neuter Adjectives with the Stem in ж , ш , ч , щ

In the nominative, singular masculine adjectives take unstressed ending - ый or stressed ending - ой: новый - большой.
Masculine plural adjectives take ending - и after the consonants г, к, х, ж, ш, щ: русский, хороший - русские, хорошие.
After the hard consonants ж and ш, word endings - ий and - ие are pronounced as - ый and – ые respectively.
In the neuter, the adjective хороший takes unstressed ending - ее: хорошее кресло.
The English counterpart of the interrogative word какой is “what” or “which”; it changes for gender and number like an adjective.

Russian Names

To a non-Russian, Russian names may seem to be strange but there is logic in the way they are constructed, even if it is Russian logic. The first name is the person’s given name. The middle name is the father’s name with a male or female suffix depending on the sex of a name bearer. The last name is the family name with a male or female suffix.

Ancient Russian names were given as a characteristic of a person: Мал (Small), Бел (Blond), Добр (Kind), Храбр (Brave), Чернава (Black-haired). Names of princes had such roots as слав and мир: Борислав, Святослав, Доброслав, Владимир, Любомир. Some of them (for example, Владимир, Борис, Вадим) still exist in modern Russian. Such female names as Светлана and Людмила came to modern Russia from Old Russian.

There is a large group of foreign names in Russian. The first of them came from Scandinavia: Игорь, Олег, Ольга. During the time of Kievan Russia, they were mostly given to royal persons. The name Игорь is formed from the Old Scandinavian name Ингвар. Such names as Oleg and Olga are derived from the German adjective “hell” - “light”, “светлый”, “светлая”. The name Елена is formed from the same root, but it came to Russian from the Greek language. Popular names Александр (-а), Алексей (m), Андрей (m), Дмитрий (m), Евгений (-я), Елена (f ), Ирина (f ), Екатерина (f ), Софья (f), Сергей (m), Павел (m), Валентин (-а), Виктор (-ия), Наталья (f), Марина (f), Маргарита (f) have Latin roots. The names Михаил (m) and Мария (f) come from Old Jewish.

The best example of borrowed names is the popular Russian name Иван. Two thousand years ago the Old Jewish name Иегоханноан was infused with Old Greek as Иоганнес and then into Russian in altered form Иоанн. This name got later simplified, and now the Russian name Иван is known all over the world. Before the Revolution in 1917, every fourth inhabitant of a Russian village was called Иван. This Russian name is close to the English name Джон, French - Жанн, Italian - Джиованна, Spanish - Хуан, Polish - Ян, Finnish - Юхан and German - Иоганн.

NOTE: English names in Russian are not always spelled like they are in English. For example, William the Conqueror is spelled as Вильгельм (Wilhelm); Henry, when referring to kings, as Генрих (Henrikh), and Генри (Henry) when referring to non-royal persons. Alexander the Great is referred to as Александр Македонский (Alexander of Macedonia) in Russian. The English Queen’s name is not Elizabeth in Russian, but Елизавета (Yelizaveta). The name Charles, when referring to kings, is spelled as Карл (Karl), and Чарльз (Charles) when referring to persons of non-royal origin. However, there is one exception - English Prince Charles’ name is spelled in Russian just like it is in English – Чарльз (Charles).

Declension of Russian and Foreign Male and Female Names

Declension of Russian First and Middle Names

Declension of Russian Male Names

Declension of Russian Male Surnames (- ин , - ов , - ой , - ев , - ий )

Declension of Russian Female Surnames (- ина , - ова , - ая )

Declension of Foreign Male First Names

Declension of Foreign Male Surnames (- ин , - ов , - ой , - ев , - ий )

Declension of Foreign Female Surnames