Here you go, Delalyra. I've got a lesson for ya.
<b>LESSON 6 / ШЕСТОЙ УРОК / SHESTÓJ URÓK</b>
1) Long-Form Adjectives in the Nominative
There are two main forms an adjective can take in Russian - "long form" and "short form". For now we'll just be discussing the long form, which can be used to modify a noun.
Like the possessive modifiers you learned earlier, adjectives have four forms within each case - a masculine singular, feminine singular, neuter singular, and an all-gender plural.
The masculine singular is the citation form. For most adjectives, this ending is -ый
-yj.
- красивый krasívyj "beautiful"
- новый nóvyj "new"
(The adjective stem, of course, can be found by removing this ending: *красив-, *нов-)
If the stem ends in К, Г, Х (the velars), Ш Щ Ж Ч Ц (the palatals), or a soft consonant, this ending must be spelled -ий
-ij.
- русский rússkij "Russian" (root *рус-ск-, with final velar)
- хороший khoróshij "good" (root *хорош-, with final palatal)
- последний poslédnij "last" (root *послед-нь-, with final soft consonant)
The last of the three, the final soft consonant, is rather rare in adjectives, but they do exist.
The feminine singular adds the ending -ая
-aja, for all adjectives:
- красивая krasívaja
- новая nóvaja
- русская rússkaja
- хорошая khoróshaja
(Notice how the stress doesn't change - this is probably the only part of speech where you've lucked out and don't have to deal with spontaneous stress changes)
The only exception is that the stems ending in a soft consonant must spell the ending -яя in order to preserve the palatalization.
The basic neuter singular ending is -ое
-oje. Final velar adjectives use this form too.
- красивое krasívoje
- новое nóvoje
- русское rússkoje
Final palatal and soft-consonant adjectives take the soft form -ее
-jeje (need I remind you of the Russian /o ~ e/ umlaut?)
- хорошее khorósheje
- последнее poslédneje
The basic plural ending is -ые
-yje. This follows the same rules as the nominative singular regarding spelling.
- красивые krasívyje
- новые nóvyje
Which is spelled -ие for final velars, final palatals, and final soft consonants.
- хорошие khoróshije
- русские rússkije
- последние poslédnije
The hardest part is remembering which spellings each group takes, since they sort of 'jump around' (like how final velars are grouped with final softs in the NomSgM and NomPl, but not in the NomSgFm and NomSgNt).
Generally speaking, adjectives are placed before the noun they modify. Of course, they can just as easily follow it. This usually adds a bit of extra emphasis.
All of the above adjectives are stem-stressed, meaning the stress always falls on the stem of the word. If the adjective is ending-stressed, the only difference is that the nominative singular ending is -ой
-oj instead of -ый/-ий:
- MSg: большой bol'shój "big, large"
- FSg: большая bol'shája
- NSg: большое bol'shóje
- Pl: большие bol'shíje
2) Nouns in the Accusative Plural
The accusative plural is identical to the nominative plural for all nouns (masculine, feminine, and neuter). The only exception, of course, are your animate count nouns (such as студент
studént), whose endings we will learn later.
3) Adjectives in the Accusative (Inanimate)
For inanimate nouns, all forms but the feminine singular are identical to the nominative (just like how only feminine nouns have a distinct accusative form).
The feminine singular is formed by taking its nominative form and replacing the ending -ая with -ую
-uju, or the soft-consonant ending -яя with -юю
-juju, just like how the nouns replace final -а with -у.
- красивую krasívuju
- новую nóvuju
- русскую rússkuju
- хорошую khoróshuju
- большую bol'shúju
- последнюю poslédnjuju
4) Two Verbs of Motion - идти
idtí and ехать
jékhat'
Both of these verbs mean "to go", but идти means you're going on foot (or no means is specified) and ехать means you're going by vehicle. No such distinction is made consistently in English.
Both verbs are irregular, but in the present tense they happen to follow the regular patterns closely, albeit with unexpected roots.
The present-tense root of идти is *ид-, and conjugates like an ending-stressed first-conjugation verb.
- я иду idú
- ты идёшь idjósh'
- он идёт idjót
- мы идём idjóm
- вы идёте idjóte
- они идут idút
The present tense root of ехать is *ед-, and is a follows a variant of the first conjugation pattern:
- я еду jédu
- ты едешь jédesh'
- он едет jédet
- мы едем jédem
- вы едете jédete
- они едут jédut
5) The Prepostions в and на with the Accusative Case
You have already learned how to use these two prepostions with the prepostional case to express "in ___" and "on ___". When used with the
accusative case instead, they indicated motion into or onto:
Я иду в школу.
Ja idú v shkólu.
"I'm going into the school."
The only potential confusion you may have is with neuter nouns ending in -е in the nominative, such as море
móre "sea" (whose accusative and prepositional forms are both море as well). However, context should serve to clear up whether you're talking about "in the sea" or "into the sea".
EXERCISES:
1) Decline the adjective given in parentheses so that it agrees properly with the noun given.
- (красивый) дома (krasívyj) domá "beautiful homes"
- (новый) книга (nóvyj) kníga "a new book"
- (трудный) уроки (trúdnyj) uróki "difficult lessons"
- (каждый) неделя (kázhdyj) nedélja "every week"
- (плохой) погода (plokhój) pogóda "bad weather"
- (вечерний) новости (vechérnij) nóvosti "evening news" ("news" is plural in Russian!)
2) Fill in the blank with the properly conjugated verb for "to go".
- Он ___ в Москву в машине. Ón ____ v Moskvú v mashíne.
- Сегодня я не еду в школу на автобусе, а ____ пешком. Segódnja já ne jédu na avtóbuse, a ____ peshkóm.
- Она хочет туда ____ в среду. Oná khóchet tudá ____ v srédu.
- Как туда лучше _____? На поезде или на автобусе? Kák tudá lúchshe ____? Na pójezde íli na avtóbuse?
Vocabulary: (Words you should remember are marked with an asterisk. Others are constructions we will learn later and you need not worry about now)
- сегодня segódnja* "today" (note: pronounced [s'I."vo.dn'@], with a /v/)
- автобус avtóbus* "bus"
- а a* - In this case, it is translated as "but". This word is often used immediately following a negative clause and before a positive one, meaning "I'm not doing this, but rather doing this"
- пешком peshkóm* "on foot"
- хочет khóchet "he/she wants" (followed by infinitive)
- туда tudá* "to there" (the directional form of там, which just specifies location)
- в среду v srédu "on Wednesday"
- Как лучше...? Kák lúchshe...?* "What's the best way to..." (literally "How is it better..."; followed by infinitive)
- или íli* "or"
3) Translate into Russian.
- I'm reading an old book.
- She wants to go to the city library.
- Our new car is red.
- My old friends are coming here tomorrow.
Vocabulary:
- старый stáryj* "old" (age-wise)
- городской gorodskój "city" (the adjectival form; in case you haven't noticed yet, Russian often turns nouns into adjectives in addition to using the genitive case)
- библиотека bibliotéka* "library"
- красный krásnyj* "red"
- давнишний davníshnij* "old" (time-wise, "for a long time" or "long-standing")
- сюда sjudá* "to here" (the directional form of здесь)
- завтра závtra* "tomorrow" (Remember, in Russian, try to put sentence-level adverbs before the verb; not necessarily immediately before, but it should come before the verb in the sentence)
And just a small note for the third one - use an en dash ( – ) for the copula "to be" here. A written en dash is used in Russian in place of the zero-copula if confusion may otherwise arise, such as when you have two nouns (Джон – врач Dzhon – vrách "John is a doctor"). There is no difference in speech.