Russian grammar
Russian grammar explained in plain words. No articles, only three tenses, and a question is made by intonation alone. What is harder: six cases whose endings show who did what, and aspect pairs like делать and сделать — “to work on” and “to get done” — that have to be learned together.
Notes
- 📐Privet, zdravstvuyte and spokoynoy nochi: friends and strangersPrivet is the hi you say to your own people: family, friends, people your age. A stranger or an elder gets zdravstvuyte…
- 📐Ty and vy: the polite you that takes a plural verbVy does two jobs: it speaks to several people at once, and it speaks politely to one. The verb after polite vy is…
- 📐No linking verb in the present tense"I am a student" is ya student — two words, no verb. The linker simply vanishes: ona v Moskve, eto voda are complete…
- 📐Present tense: -u, -esh, -et, -em, -ete, -utThe present endings are short and steady: -u for I, -esh for you, -et for he or she, then -em, -ete, -ut. The pronoun…
- 📐Three genders: on, ona, onoEvery noun carries a gender, and the ending is the usual clue: a consonant or -y — he; -a or -ya — she; -o or -ye — it.…
- 📐After khochu and lyublyu the word bends: voda → voduThe thing you want or love stands in a special form — the one that answers whom? or what?: khochu vodu, lyublyu kofe…
- 📐Two aspects: doing and doneAlmost every verb comes as a pair: one half for the process, one for the result. delat — to be doing; sdelat — to get…
- 📐Stress: one letter decides the wordStress is not written, yet it makes the word: zAmok, stress early, is a fortress; zamOk, stress late, is the thing on a…
- 📐Deshevle, dorozhe, luchshe: the comparativeTo compare two things, the adjective changes its tail: -ee or -ey. deshyovyy → deshevle, bystryy → bystree, svezhiy →…
- 📐Dva stola, pyat stolov: counting bends the nounOne thing keeps the dictionary form: odin stol, odna lampa. Then the counting starts, and the noun bends with the…
- 📐V golove or v golovu: the preposition holds the formThe prepositions v and na each have two faces. One face is place, where you are: v golove, na kukhne, v apteke. The…
- 📐Byl, byla, bylo: the past remembers genderThe past is built from the stem plus a short tail: -l, -la, -lo, -li: rabotal, rabotala, rabotalo, rabotali. There is…
- 📐Podozhdi and podozhdite: request, command, politenessA request starts from the command form. For ty the tail is short, -y or -i: podozhdi, skazhi, obyasni. Polite vy adds…
- 📐Two futures: budu plus the verb, or the done formThe future has two builds. One is budu plus the verb: budu chitat, budem ekhat. The other is the done half of a pair…
- 📐Dva chasa, pyat chasov: the number picks the noun formAfter odin the noun keeps its dictionary form: odin chas. After dva, tri, chetyre comes a special counting form: dva…
- 📐V kurtke and v kurtku: where against where toThe preposition v looks the same in both phrases; the form of the noun tells them apart. v kurtke — where? you are…
- 📐Verbs in -sya: smeyatsya, boyatsya, kupatsyaThe tail -sya is an old sebya — yourself — worn down to two syllables. Sometimes it means exactly that: kupatsya is to…
- 📐Nado, mozhno, nelzya: who feels it and what forNado and nuzhno are subjectless: no I inside, only a to-whom. mne nado gotovit, mame nado spat — the person who needs…
- 📐The stress in zvonit, soobshchenie and zaryadkaStress here is free: tied to neither the start of a word nor its end — every word carries its own spot. zamOk is the…
- 📐Na avtobuse or v avtobus: getting aroundThe same phrase changes its tail with the question. Answering where to?, the noun takes its whom-what form: syad v…
- 📐Vyigrat or vyigryvat: one match, two verbsA verb here looks at the game twice: the result and the process. vyigrat — it is done: the score is on the board, the…
- 📐Chto, potomu chto, esli, kogda: two thoughts in one sentenceTwo short sentences are stitched with a conjunction: "We are celebrating at home. The whole family is together" becomes…
- 📐Moy, tvoy, svoy: whose thing it isThe possessives change for the thing, not for the owner: moy brat, moya sestra, moyo okno, moi deti. The owner picks…
- 📐Kotoryy: the word that bends by itselfKotoryy takes its gender from the thing: kniga — kotoraya, uchebnik — kotoryy, pismo — kotoroe. You agree with it, not…
- 📐Mnogo and malo: after them the noun answers of whatAfter mnogo, malo and skolko the noun stands in the of-form: mnogo deneg, malo vremeni, skolko vody. The dictionary…
- 📐By: politeness and the things that never happenedBy does not conjugate: one word for everyone. It stands next to the past form: ya khotel by, ona pomogla by, my…
- 📐Dorozhe and samyy dorogoy: comparing and toppingThe short comparative lives on -ee and -e: dorogoy — dorozhe, deshyovyy — deshevle, lyogkiy — legche. It is shorter and…
- 📐Slishkom, takoy zhe, vdvoe: words around a qualitySlishkom means more than needed: slishkom dorogo, slishkom malenkaya. The adjective stays as it is; nothing to change.
- 📐Aspect and tense: where delat or sdelat must be chosenMost verbs come in pairs: delat and sdelat, bronirovat and zabronirovat, chitat and prochitat. One half answers what…
- 📐Reported speech: what changes when you retellThe tense in someone's words does not move. What the person said stays in the tense it was said in: Ona skazala, chto…
- 📐Zayavlenie podano: the sentence without the doerThe language of paperwork gets along without the doer: a certificate and a ruling never name the hand that made them.…
- 📐Potomu chto, chtoby, kogda: reason, purpose and timeReason. Potomu chto is the neutral answer to why: Ostalsya doma, potomu chto bolen. Iz-za points at the culprit and…
- 📐Vvodnye slova: the words set off by commasA parenthetical word is not a member of the sentence: cross it out and nothing breaks. Kstati, tvoy zont u menya loses…
- 📐Skromnyy and skromen: the long and the short formWords about character have two shapes. The long one, on skromnyy, speaks of a standing property. The short one, on…
- 📐Stesnyatsya and obizhatsya: why verbs take -syaThe tail -sya is a shrunken sebya, and it turns the action back on the doer. Odevat — to dress someone; odevatsya — to…
- 📐Varit and svarit: the prefix delivers the resultKitchen verbs almost always come in pairs: process and result. Ya varyu sup — the pot is on. Ya svaril sup — done, call…
- 📐Iz shersti or sherstyanoy: what a thing is made ofThe material is named by iz plus the of-form: iz shersti — of wool, iz metalla — of metal, iz plastika — of plastic. A…
- 📐Prikleit, otkrutit, zakrutit: the prefix changes the jobOne root yields a whole set of actions. Kleit is just gluing; prikleit, nakleit, zakleit, otkleit are four different…
- 📐Idyot dozhd and mne kholodno: sentences with no subjectWeather talk runs without an owner: svetaet, temneet, morosit, gromykhaet. Nobody asks who is dawning; in the past the…
- 📐Naprotiv, vdol, cherez: the road prepositions and their formsDirections are given with prepositions, and each takes its own form of the noun. The reference points stand in the…
- 📐Mne nravitsya and mne trudno: the to-form in place of a subjectWhere another language puts I, this one often puts mne: mne nravitsya, mne povezlo, mne trudno dayotsya grammatika. No…
- 📐Budu delat or sdelayu: how the future picks the aspectNo separate future word is needed: the future hides inside the verb itself. Prochitayu, napishu, zabudu — all future…
- 📐Ne mogli by vy: what softens a requestA bare Pomogite! is a command. Ne mogli by vy pomoch? is a request: the little word by turns the order into an offer…
- 📐Fermer and fermersha: how the professions are builtA profession is assembled from a verb or from a thing: uchit gives uchitel, stroit gives stroitel, perevodit gives…
- 📐Dengi: the word with no singularDengi exists only in the plural: dengi est, dengam rad, o dengakh molchat. There is no one dengi. For a single coin…
- 📐Chelovek — lyudi, rebyonok — deti: plurals that swap the rootThe two most needed words about people swap their root entirely. Chelovek in the plural is lyudi: lyudey, lyudyam, s…
- 📐Vystuplenie, zagryaznenie, voobrazhenie: a verb made into a thingThe tail -nie turns a doing into a thing: vystupat gives vystuplenie, zagryaznyat gives zagryaznenie, voobrazhat gives…
- 📐Igrat v tennis, zanimatsya begom, bolet za komanduThe three verbs take three different forms. Igrat wants v plus the whom-what form: igrat v tennis, v futbol, v…
- 📐Metr tkani, litr moloka: after a measure the noun answers of whatAfter a measure word the neighbour changes: metr tkani, litr moloka, kilogramm yablok. The noun answers of what — that…
- 📐Mne kholodno, mne luchshe: how you feel is said to whomHow you feel is told not from I but from to whom: mne kholodno, emu durno, ey luchshe. The to-form answers to whom? and…
- 📐Na prazdnik, k prazdniku, vo vremya: the occasion through the prepositionAn occasion and a deadline are laid out over prepositions, and the preposition changes the meaning. Na — an event you…
- 📐Yakoby, mol, po slovam: marking someone else's wordsSomeone else's words come in several ways, and the first is a phrase with a source: po slovam vracha, so slov soseda.…
- 📐Chem ranshe, tem luchshe: comparing actionsA quality of a thing answers what kind?: bystryy, lyogkiy. A quality of a deed answers how?: bystro, legko. Both…
- 📐Myatyy, rzhavyy, vytsvetshiy: a thing's state, taken from a verbMany words about a thing's state are made from verbs: myat gave myatyy, rzhavet — rzhavyy, vytsvesti — vytsvetshiy.…
- 📐Nozhom, metrom, rukoy: the by/with form without a prepositionThe tool answers by what? and does without a preposition: rezat nozhom, merit metrom, pisat rukoy. Slip a s in and it…
- 📐Vverkhu or vverkh: where against where toTwo questions are kept apart: where? and where to? The first is answered by vverkhu, vnizu, vnutri; the second by…
- 📐Vtroe or na tret: times over and by a partV plus a number speaks of times over — how many times: vdvoe, vtroe, v dva raza. Na plus a number speaks of a part…
- 📐Stavit and postavit: the verb walks in pairsA verb lives as a pair: stavit — the process; postavit — once and done. The question tells them apart: chto delat?…
- 📐Poka and do tekh por: tying events by timeTwo events in one sentence are tied by time conjunctions, and each has its own job.
- 📐Stroitsya and postroen: two ways to hide the doerWhen who acts does not matter, the doer is hidden — and two ways of doing it are not to be mixed up.
- 📐Dobrota, terpenie, upryamstvo: the tails of qualitiesNames of qualities are built from ready words by hanging on a tail. Catch the trick and half the unfamiliar words fall…
- 📐Zabavno and zabavnyy: the adverb from the adjectiveA verdict on a film or a story is usually an adjective turned: swap the tail and zabavnyy final becomes bylo zabavno.
- 📐Poprosil, chtoby: someone else's request and questionSomeone else's words are set into a frame, and the tense inside does not move: said yesterday — and still coming…
- 📐From the deed to the person: -tel, -nik, -istA profession is handy to build from the deed. Someone works with meat — myasnik; teaches children — uchitel; drives a…
- 📐Reshit or reshat: once or every timeA verb here looks at the deed twice: finished or going on. Reshit zadachu — the result: took and solved, the case is…
- 📐Slomatsya, ostatsya: what -sya doesThe tail -sya turns the action back on the one who does it: myt — mytsya, katit — katatsya, slomat — slomatsya. The cup…
- 📐Idti or khodit: once or every timeOn foot and just once is idti; the habit of walking is khodit. Today they say ya idu v pokhod, in general — ya khozhu v…
- 📐Igrat na pianino or igrat v futbolThe instrument stands under na: igrat na pianino, na gitare, na skripke. A game with rules goes under v: igrat v…
What works differently from what you know
In the present tense there is no linking verb: “I am a doctor” is two words with no verb in them. In the past and the future it comes back: “I was a doctor”, “I will be a doctor”. The verb “to be” exists in the language — it is simply left unsaid in the present.
“Russkaya grammatika” (Russian Grammar), ed.-in-chief N. Yu. Shvedova, USSR Academy of Sciences, vol. II, 1980
What is hard about Russian and what comes for free
Hard: six cases whose endings show who did what, and aspect pairs like делать and сделать — “to work on” and “to get done” — that have to be learned together.
Easy: no articles, only three tenses, and a question is made by intonation alone.
This is not a verdict on the language but a hint on where to spend effort. The hard parts are best taken a little at a time and often; the easy parts — left alone while they work by themselves.
Frequently asked
Is the grammar of Russian complicated?
Six cases whose endings show who did what, and aspect pairs like делать and сделать — “to work on” and “to get done” — that have to be learned together is the main difficulty. In return, no articles, only three tenses, and a question is made by intonation alone.
Should grammar be learned separately?
Not as a separate course. A rule learned before you need it is forgotten before you meet it. It is more useful to work it out at the moment you stumble over it.