Language/Russian/Grammar/Genitive-Case

Russian → Grammar → Genitive Case

As a Russian language teacher with 20 years of experience, I understand the importance of mastering the Russian Grammar. In this lesson, we will elaborate on the Genitive Case, which is one of the six cases of Russian nouns. The Genitive Case is used to indicate possession, negation, and to express absence or lack of something. Mastering the Genitive case will enable you to communicate more effectively in Russian.

Don't miss the chance to check out these pages as you wrap up this lesson: A vs И & Introduction to Pronouns.

What is the Genitive Case?

The Genitive case is used to indicate possession, negation, and to express absence or lack of something. In order to form the genitive case, a noun must change its ending according to its gender and whether it is animate or inanimate. The Russian language has masculine, feminine, and neuter genders in both inanimate and animate objects.

Forming the Genitive Case

In order to form the genitive case, a noun should have its endings changed in accordance with its gender and whether it is animate or inanimate. When a masculine noun ends in a consonant, the ending is replaced with “a” (for inanimate objects) or “я” (for animate ones). Feminine nouns require “ы” or “и” endings while neuter nouns require “а” or “я” endings.

Examples of the Genitive Case

Here are some examples of how the Genitive case can be used in Russian:

Russian	Pronunciation	English
Книга	Kniga	Book
Книга моей сестры	Kniga moyey sestry	My sister's book
Нет книги	Net knigi	There is no book
Я не хожу в кино	Ya ne khazhu v kino	I don't go to the cinema

As you may notice in the second example, the possessive “моей” (moyey) was added to indicate possession. In the third example, the word “нет” (net) indicating the word “no” is used. In the fourth example, the word “не” (ne) and the verb “ходить” (khodit) were added to form a negated sentence in the Genitive case.

Tips for learning the Genitive Case

Here are some tips that can help you learn the Genitive case:

• Practice and repetition are essential to memorize the different noun endings in Genitive.
• Learn the gender of the noun to know which ending to use for -ы or -и for feminine, -а or -я for neuter and -a or -я for masculine.
• Study the rules for declension which will show you when to use the Genitive case in different contexts, such as possession, negation, and absence.

By studying and practicing the Genitive case, you will take a significant step forward to mastering Russian Grammar.

Sources

• The Genitive Case - Russian Grammar
• Russian/Grammar/Genitive case - Wikibooks, open books for an ...
• The Russian Genitive Case Explained – StoryLearning

Other Lessons

• Future Tense
• Dative Case
• The verb to be
• А vs Но
• Plurals
• Perfective Imperfective
• Noun Cases Overview
• Past Tense Conjugations
• Noun Adjective Agreement
• Verbs of Motion