The Russian nominative case

Reading gender from the last letter

Every Russian noun has a gender: masculine, feminine or neuter. It is a grammar label, not about meaning (a table is masculine, a book feminine), but it decides every ending in every other case. In the nominative singular you can see it from the last letter, with one ambiguous ending, -ь. Full detail in noun gender.

The subject and verb agreement

The subject is the person or thing that does the action, or that the sentence describes. It is always in the nominative, and the verb agrees with it: in the present and future the verb ending matches the person (I, you, she…); in the past it matches the gender and number. The subject is blue throughout this page.

“This is…” and the missing “is”

Russian has no word for “is” or “are” in the present tense. Two nouns, or a noun and an adjective, are simply placed side by side, both in the nominative. In writing, a dash (—) often marks the gap between two nouns.

In the past and future, “was” and “will be” appear (был, бу́дет), and a noun after them usually moves into the instrumental: Он был врачо́м, “he was a doctor”.

The thing you have, like, need or feel

Several everyday sentences are built the other way round from English. The owner, the person who likes something, or the person in pain is in another case; the thing itself is the grammatical subject, in the nominative, and the verb agrees with it.

Names, calling out, signs and titles

Wherever a word stands on its own, without a role in a sentence, it is in the nominative: names after “is called”, people you call out to, words on signs, titles of books and films, items on a menu.

Plural: four endings

The nominative plural is the basic “more than one” form. Masculine and feminine nouns mostly take -ы or -и; neuter nouns take -а or -я. After г, к, х, ж, ш, ч and щ, Russian never writes ы, so it writes и. The plurals guide covers every pattern.

Adjectives, possessives and pronouns

An adjective (a describing word) matches its noun’s gender and number. These are the dictionary forms: an adjective is always listed in the masculine nominative.

Why word order is free

In English, the word before the verb is the subject: “Dad loves Mum” and “Mum loves Dad” are different sentences. In Russian the ending shows who does what, so the words can move without changing the facts. What moves is the emphasis: new or important information goes at the end. This is a B1–C1 skill, and the key to sounding natural. More in word order.

Check yourself

Give the nominative (dictionary) form of the word in square brackets, pick the right form, or name the subject. Say the answer out loud, then reveal it.