Lesson 031

The Accusative case of singular nouns

We dedicate this lesson to forming the Accusative case of singular nouns.

Masculine nouns

As we said in the previous lesson, the Accusative case is a bit special: it is the only case whose usage depends on whether the noun is animate (people or animals) or inanimate. Likely, it is only important for masculine nouns.

Here are the rules to remember:

– inanimate nouns – no change
– animate nouns ending in a consonant – add а
– animate nouns ending in й – replace й with я
– animate nouns ending with ь – replace ь with я

Examples:

дом – дом (house; inanimate)
за́яц – за́йца (hare; animate)
конь – коня́ (horse; animate)
злоде́й – злоде́я (villain, miscreant, malefactor; animate)

Feminine nouns

For feminine nouns ending in …

а -> replace with у
я -> replace with ю
ь -> no change

луна́ – луну́ (moon)
гра́ница – грани́цу (border)
рука́ – ру́ку (hand, arm)
неде́ля – неде́лю (week)
ста́нция – ста́нцию (station)
дверь – дверь (door)

Neuter nouns

This one will make you happy: Russian neuter nouns do not change in the Accusative case!

Accusative case memo chart

Here is a simple memo chart that puts all we learned in this lesson together:

ending or description how to change examples
masculine
inanimate no change дом - дом
animate, a consonant за́яц – за́йца
animate, й -й / +я злоде́й – злоде́я
animate, ь -ь / +я конь – коня́
feminine
а -а / +у луна́ – луну́
я -я / +ю ста́нция – ста́нцию
ь no change дверь – дверь
neuter
all nouns no change лицо́ – лицо́

To practice, go to the previous lesson, look at the examples we gave and explain to yourself the endings of the nouns in the Accusative case.

The offline version of this lesson is available here

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