Transcript Case system with house examples

CASES in Russian
• The cases are a concept that does not exist
in English. Those who did Latin or German
might have encountered cases before. Put
simply, they make nouns (objects, people,
abstract concepts like „love“, „peace“,
„understanding“) and adjectives (describing
words) change their endings.
WHY does Russian need cases?
• In English, many different situations are
expressed with e.g. only a preposition
(relation word = puts two nouns into some
sort of relation with each other, i.e. I went
out with him/I went out without him.)
Russian expresses this in addition with the
ending of a word. This has grown
historically, English dropped its endings,
Russian kept and „cultivated“ them.
WHERE do I find cases?
• Only nouns, pronouns (substitute nouns,
like he or her) adjectives and number words
are affected.
• They will change endings after prepositions,
verbs (action words) or to express
differences of usage
How do I know WHICH case I
need?
• You can’t KNOW, you will have to learn it or
use the dictionary for help!
• When you learn new words (a verb e.g.),
always write in brackets which case it takes so
you know for the future
HOW do I find out what the
endings are?
• You will get a “CASE BIBLE”. For all its
complications, Russian is at least a rather
regular language with not too many
exceptions.
• Certain question words will indicate which
case to use.
THE RUSSIAN CASE SYSTEM
Russian has 6 cases. Learn them by heart in the following order:
1. NOMINATIVE
2. GENITIVE
3. DATIVE
4. ACCUSATIVE
5. INSTRUMENTAL
6. PREPOSITIONAL
We will learn in which situations which case is used and practice
to change words according to the so called declension tables.
NOMINATIVE
• BASIC FORM of nouns, adjectives and number words as
you would find them in the DICTIONARY.
• Used to answer the question “WHO is …” or “WHAT is
…” (кто/что) and in sentences stating facts with “is”
e.g.
• That is my father. – Это мой отец.
• This is a house. – Это дом.
• This is an interesting book. - Это интересная книга.
PREPOSITIONAL
• Used mostly to indicate LOCATION after the two
prepositions „в“ and „на“ = „in“.
• Used to answer the question “ABOUT who/what…”
(o ком/о чём)
• Тhe most common ending is -e.
e.g.
• I live in a house. – Я живу в доме.
• I think about my brother. – Я думаю о брате.
Practice1 – упражнение1
• How would you say in Russian:
I live in
- a house
- a manor
- a castle
- a countryside house (MEMORISE! Use “на”
- a skyscraper
- a flat
- a bungalow (NB! Foreign word)
- a villa
- England
- Russia
упражнение2
• How would you say in Russian:
I live in
- a detached house
- a semidetached house
- a beautiful castle (beautiful = красивый)
- a big flat
- the White house
- a multi-storey house
- a small bungalow