What’s the most difficult thing in the Russian language? Let’s all say it together in chorus… The CASES! The Grammar Cases.

Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative, Instrumental, Prepositional.

In this article, I’ll tell you how to go about learning them and then give you some tips on the Genitive Case.

But before I say anything, I want to ask you to leave a comment below with YOUR way of approaching the Cases!

Be fair. Don’t go away without sharing your tips! I and other people want to know.

The Backward Approach

A few months ago I talked about my “backward” approach to learning the Cases as part of a talk at Oxford University. You can watch the relevant part on the Cases here.

As explained on the video, I believe that you shouldn’t learn all the rules one by one for each case, noun, adjective, pronoun etc. They are so many!

Instead, learn the cases as they come to you while you experience the language.

Don’t look out for them. Let them knock on your door.

Every time you come across a noun expressed in an unfamiliar form, only then track it back. Go backwards!

Let’s look at an example.

You come across the form в ресторане.

What’s this one?

Mmm.. first of all the noun is ресторан. It’s a masculine noun ending in a consonant – н.

Ohhh, hold on a second! This is similar to what I saw yesterday! – в магазине.

ресторан – магазин. Both masculine ending in a consonant.

What does в ресторане mean?

In the restaurant.

Where?

В ресторане. – In the restaurant.

Where?

В магазине. – In the shop.

Prepositional Case – Masculine noun ending in consonant – Singular.

Group в ресторане and в магазине together in your head.

Tomorrow, you’ll come across в институте, в университете, в парке etc.

Every time you come across a new one, recall as many as possible in the same form and write them down with pen and paper.

You put mental effort into making these associations. You push yourself to remember. These are YOUR associations. YOUR rules. You didn’t just read them passively on a textbook. You made them. You can’t forget them.

Put them in Grammar Sacks

You can imagine the Cases as sacks in your memory. Each sack contains nouns or adjectives of the same type expressed in a certain Case.

For example have a look at the picture below:

How to learn the Grammar Cases - Grammar Sacks - http://exlorerussian.com

We have three sacks.

The first (left) contains feminine nouns expressed in the Accusative Case.

The second (right) contains masculine nouns expressed in the Instrumental Case.

The third (centre) contains feminine nouns expressed in the Prepositional Case.

Every time you come across a noun or adjective, try to remember other nouns or adjectives expressed in the same form and put them together into the same sack.

If you come across something completely unseen, put it aside and wait until you see something else that looks similar, so you can group them together in the same memory sack.

You can also have a look at the grammar rule but don’t stress yourself to memorise it. Carry on and when you see something similar it will be much easier to create a pattern and construct the rule yourself. That’s more efficient!

Learn the Grammar Cases in Context

Explore Russian is all about learning in context. Context means songs, films, poems, cartoons, stories etc. (Read here why this is good in the case of songs).

Learning in context means to look at something from different perspectives.

In the previous article, we learned Russian through proverbs. The proverbs were drawn from the most popular Russian comedy. You watched a film. You listened to a dialogue. You remember the characters. We linked the proverbs to culture and history, i.e. Soviet Era. You can see how many perspectives you can have here.

What’s more, those proverbs could even extend a Russian lesson and make it a life lesson for yourself. That’s another perspective. For example, the proverb that we discussed “Терпение и труд всё перетруд – With patience and work you can achieve everything” could help you to carry on in a tough moment in your life. In a case like that, you certainly have made the most of your Russian lesson.

You should learn the Cases in Context as you should with everything else!

Suppose now I tell you that the noun собака ending in -а in the Genitive Case becomes собаки. Here you have only one perspective. The dry grammar perspective.

Suppose I give you the phrase “Если у вас нет собаки, eё не отравит сосед. – If you don’t have a dog, your neighbour will not poison it.” The negation нет requires that the dog be in the Genitive Case and собака becomes собаки. OK, we’re done with the grammar perspective. Let’s go further.

This phrase comes from a very popular song from a very popular film that every Russian knows. The song is full of phrases like that with nouns expressed in Genitive Case. For example:

Если у вас нету дома, пожары ему не страшны. – If you don’t have a house, fires are not a threat to it.

Если у вас нет жены, жена не уйдет к другому. – If you don’t have a wife, your wife will never cheat on you!

The deeper meaning of the song is that the more things you have in life, the more you are stressed about taking care of them and protecting them. Hence, you shouldn’t worry if you are poor. The less, the better.

You see how many perspectives you’ve got here. Song, film, culture, even life wisdom!

It gets more interesting and harder to forget like that.

Let’s now try to find some context for the Genitive Case. That will be some Russian wishes! 🙂

Genitive Case – Basic Phrases

If you are a beginner, you probably already know the following phrases:

До скорой встречи. – See you later.

До свидания. – Goodbye (formal)

До вечера. – Till the evening.

Хорошего дня. – Have a good day.

Хорошего вечера. – Have a good evening.

Приятного аппетита. – Bon appetit.

Всего хорошего. – All the best.

Спокойной ночи. – Have a good night.

Удачи! – Good luck!

 

What do all these phrases have in common?

Everything in them is expressed in the Genitive Case.

Why?

Because for the first three in the list, до – until is a preposition that takes Genitive Case.

All the rest are wishes in which the verb желаю – I wish you is implied.

For example,

(Я желаю тебе) хорошего дня. – I wish you a good day.

(Я желаю тебе) удачи. – I wish you luck.

Genitive Case – Associations

When we first learn Russian, we see phrases like the ones above only from the vocabulary perspective. There is just a word and a translation there. That’s fine.

But when we advance with our studying, we sometimes fail to look back and find different perspectives in what we already know. The time spent “solidifying” existing knowledge through making associations is time worth spending. Not only does it make stronger memories of the existing information but helps the acquisition of future information.

Let’s try to “reverse engineer” the above phrases and identify patterns.

До скорой встречи looks like спокойной ночи. Same endings. There must be something here.

The initial form is скорая встреча which then becomes скорой встречи in the Genitive Case.

Similarly, the initial form is спокойная ночь becomes спокойной ночи in the Genitive Case.

The nouns are both feminine.

встреча – meeting

ночь – night

In the Genitive Case, they turn -а and -ь to -и.

встреча → встречи

ночь → ночи

Since the nouns are feminine, so must be the adjectives that accompany them.

скорая – feminine form of the adjective скорый – near (like near future)

спокойная – feminine form of the adjective спокойный – quiet

So, feminine adjectives ending in -ая in the Genitive Case change their ending to -ой.

скорая → скорой

спокойная → спокойной

 

Удачи has the same ending as встречи. 

That’s another association! For all the three nouns, the Genitive Case has an ending in -и.

удача → удачи 

встреча → встречи

ночь → ночи

 

Вечера has the same ending as аппетита.

Both are masculine nouns ending in a consonant. The Genitive Case is formed by adding an –a in the end:

вечер → вечера

аппетит → аппетита

 

The form дня is the Genitive Case of the word день – day.

хороший день → хорошего дня

Just like…

хороший аппетит → хорошего аппетита

Just like…

хороший вечер → хорошего вечера

 

All the above phrases and associations can serve as a toolkit for working out the Genitive Case of other nouns. For example, if I ask you what’s the Genitive Case of the word друг you may recall the phrase хорошего вечера to find the answer: друга.

Obviously, these associations may not always work as there are exceptions. For example, the Genitive Case of ветер – wind is ветра instead of ветера. Just like the Genitive Case of отец is отца (this is a rule called “the moving vowel rule”).

In any case, these associations can provide some insight and help you work out an answer without having to memorise a million grammar rules.

Genitive Case – More Phrases

As you see, lots of wishes in Russian are expressed in the Genitive Case. Shall we have a look at some more?

(Желаю тебе) счастливого пути – Have a happy journey.

счастливый путь – happy journey

Счастья и здоровья тебе. – I wish you happiness and health.

счастье – happiness

здоровье – health

(Желаю тебе) хорошего настроения. –  I wish you to be in a good mood.

хорошее настроение – good mood

Счастья и здоровья тебе. – I wish you health and happiness.

счастье → счастья

здоровье → здоровья

До свидания. – Goodbye

свидание → свидания

Желаю тебе хорошего настроения. – I wish you to be in a good mood.

настроение → настроения

(Желаю тебе) успехов. – I wish you success.

успех – success

(Желаю тебе) любви. – I wish you love.

любовь → любви

ночь → ночи

 

(Желаю тебе) прекрасных ощущений. – I wish you wonderful moments.

(Желаю тебе) исполнения желаний. – I hope all your desires come true.

 

(Желаю тебе) свершения всех планов и мечтаний! – I wish you to fulfill all your plans and dreams.

ощущения → ощущений

желания → желаний

мечтания → мечтаний

You have already noticed that all these wishes put you in a good mood as they all carry a very positive message. We have said that learning is effective only when you are in positive, calm state.

Now you can carry on with your practice by sharing them with your Russian friends!

After all, we learn a language to communicate with other people. That’s the goal!

Also, as I said in the beginning, leave a comment below with your tips on learning the cases.

More articles will follow on this topic!

Спасибо за прочтение. – Thanks for reading.

Вам удачи!

Ангелос