Who and what in Russian

Russian grammar: Russian interrogative words

In one of the early lessons we learned how to say who? and what? in Russian. Today, we will look at these words in detail, learn their declension and practice them with examples.

Who is Russian is кто.

What is Russian is что.

Кто and что belong to the group of interrogative pronouns.

Declension of КТО and ЧТО

Pronouns кто and что change only by cases (they don’t change by number). So let’s start with a little table that will help us to learn all the forms of interrogative pronouns кто and что.

Case	кто	что
Nominative	кто	что
Genitive	кого́	чего́
Dative	кому́	чему́
Accusative	кого́	что
Instrumental	кем	чем
Prepositional	(о) ком	(о) чём

Now, let’s have a look at some examples:

Examples of WHO in Russian

Кто разби́л ва́зу?
Who broke the vase? (Nominative)

Кого́ не хвата́ет в гру́ппе?
Who is missing in the group? (Genitive)

Кому́ нужны́ два биле́та в кино́?
Who wants a pair of tickets to the movies? (Dative)

Про кого́ ты расска́зываешь?
Who are you talking about? (Accusative)

С кем ты то́лько что разгова́ривал?
To whom were you talking just now? (Instrumental)

О ком э́та кни́га?
Who this book is about? (Prepositional)

Examples of WHAT in Russian

Что случи́лось?
What happened? (Nominative)

Из чего́ сде́лана э́та скульпту́ра?
What is this sculpture made of? (Genitive)

Чему́ ты ра́дуешься?
Why are you so happy? (What made you so happy?) (Dative)

Что ты изуча́ешь в шко́ле?
What do you study at school? (Accusative)

Чем ты откры́л буты́лку?
What did you open the bottle with? (Instrumental)

На чём ты сиди́шь?
What are you sitting on? (Prepositional)

Practice the pronunciation with the audio recording and feel free to ask you questions in the comment section.

The offline version of this lesson is available here

• 059. There is and there are in Russian
• 061. Where? in Russian