GrammarAgreement with nouns

In Russian, an adjective (a describing word like new, big, Russian) must match the noun it describes. This matching is called agreement (согласова́ние).

Unlike English, where the adjective never changes (a new house, a new car, new houses), a Russian adjective changes its ending depending on the noun:

• но́вый дом (a new house)
• но́вая маши́на (a new car)
• но́вое окно́ (a new window)
• но́вые дома́ (new houses)

The stem но́в- stays the same, but the ending changes: -ый, -ая, -ое, -ые. Learning agreement means learning which ending to use.

What adjectives agree in

An adjective agrees with its noun in three things at the same time:

• Gender: masculine, feminine or neuter (in the singular)
• Number: singular or plural
• Case: the grammatical role of the noun in the sentence

The noun is the “boss”: you first look at the noun, then choose the adjective ending to match it. The adjective never forces the noun to change.

Good to know: the form you find in the dictionary — но́вый, большо́й, зелёный — is the masculine, singular, nominative form. Every other form is built from it.

1. Agreement in gender

In the singular, an adjective takes one of three endings, depending on the gender of the noun. You can usually tell a noun’s gender from its own ending:

• Masculine nouns usually end in a consonant: дом (house)
• Feminine nouns usually end in -а / -я: маши́на (car)
• Neuter nouns usually end in -о / -е: окно́ (window)

The adjective then “echoes” that gender with its own ending:

More examples with краси́вый (beautiful):

• краси́вый го́род (a beautiful city) — masculine
• краси́вая де́вушка (a beautiful girl) — feminine
• краси́вое пла́тье (a beautiful dress) — neuter

Important: the gender comes from the noun, not from the meaning. Кни́га (book) is feminine, so it is always но́вая кни́га, never но́вый кни́га.

2. Agreement in number

In the plural, gender disappears: masculine, feminine and neuter nouns all take the same adjective ending. For the standard (“hard”) adjective this ending is -ые.

• но́вый дом → но́вые дома́ (new houses)
• но́вая маши́на → но́вые маши́ны (new cars)
• но́вое окно́ → но́вые о́кна (new windows)

So in the plural you only have to remember one ending, no matter what gender the nouns are:

• краси́вые города́ (beautiful cities)
• краси́вые де́вушки (beautiful girls)
• краси́вые пла́тья (beautiful dresses)

The nominative endings at a glance

Here are all four basic endings of a standard adjective together:

These four are the ones to memorise first. Almost everything else is a small variation on them.

3. Three types of endings: hard, soft, and spelling-rule

Not every adjective uses exactly -ый / -ая / -ое / -ые. The vowels change a little depending on the last consonant of the stem. There are three groups.

a) Hard adjectives (the default)

The great majority. They use -ый, -ая, -ое, -ые, as above.

• ста́рый, ста́рая, ста́рое, ста́рые (old)
• интере́сный, интере́сная, интере́сное, интере́сные (interesting)

b) Soft adjectives

A small group whose stem ends in a soft -н-. The endings are “softened” versions: -ий, -яя, -ее, -ие. Many of them describe time or place.

Other common soft adjectives: после́дний (last), дома́шний (home, domestic), сего́дняшний (today’s).

c) Spelling-rule adjectives

Some adjectives look like they should be hard, but a Russian spelling rule forces a small change. After the consonants г, к, х, ж, ш, щ, ч you cannot write ы — you must write и instead. This changes the masculine and plural endings from -ый / -ые to -ий / -ие.

• ру́сский, ру́сская, ру́сское, ру́сские (Russian)
• ма́ленький, ма́ленькая, ма́ленькое, ма́ленькие (small)
• хоро́ший, хоро́шая, хоро́шее, хоро́шие (good)

Notice that the feminine -ая stays the same; only the vowel ы is affected. With hushing consonants like ш, the unstressed neuter also becomes -ее (хоро́шее). This ы → и change is a general Russian spelling rule, not something special to adjectives.

4. Stressed endings: the -о́й masculine

When the stress falls on the ending, the masculine singular is spelled -о́й instead of -ый. Everything else follows the normal pattern.

• молодо́й, молода́я, молодо́е, молоды́е (young)
• большо́й, больша́я, большо́е, больши́е (big)

So -ый and -о́й are really the same masculine ending — the difference is only where the stress falls. (In большо́й the plural is больши́е because of the spelling rule after ш.)

5. Agreement in case

Everything above was in the nominative case — the form used for the subject of a sentence. But nouns change their endings depending on their role (case), and the adjective changes with them. The adjective always takes the same gender, number and case as its noun.

Watch how both words change when но́вый дом moves into a different case:

• Но́вый дом стои́т здесь. (The new house stands here.) — nominative (subject)
• Я живу́ в но́вом до́ме. (I live in the new house.) — prepositional
• Я ви́жу но́вую маши́ну. (I see the new car.) — accusative

The adjective and the noun take different endings from each other (но́вом до́ме), but they move together as a pair. The full set of case endings is covered in the adjective declensions article — for now, the key idea is simply that the adjective copies the noun’s case.

One special case — animacy. In the accusative, a masculine or plural adjective describing a living being (a person or animal) takes a genitive-like ending, exactly as the noun does:

• Я ви́жу но́вый стол. (I see the new table.) — thing → like nominative
• Я ви́жу но́вого студе́нта. (I see the new student.) — person → like genitive

The adjective simply follows its noun here too. The declensions article has the full picture.

6. Where the adjective goes

An adjective that describes a noun normally comes right before it, just like in English:

• краси́вый дом (a beautiful house)
• ста́рый го́род (an old city)

If several adjectives describe the same noun, they all agree with it — every one takes the matching ending:

• большо́й краси́вый дом (a big beautiful house)
• но́вые интере́сные кни́ги (new interesting books)

7. Agreement also works after “to be”

An adjective agrees with its noun even when it does not stand right next to it — for example when it is the predicate (the part that says something about the subject). In the present tense Russian normally has no word for “is”, so the adjective simply follows the noun:

• Дом но́вый. (The house is new.)
• Маши́на но́вая. (The car is new.)
• Города́ краси́вые. (The cities are beautiful.)

The adjective still matches the noun in gender and number. (These describing adjectives also have a special “short form”, covered in the long and short forms article.)

8. The same idea beyond adjectives

Agreement is not only for adjectives. Words that point to or own a noun — such as possessives (мой = my) and demonstratives (э́тот = this) — change their endings to match the noun in the very same way:

• мой дом, моя́ маши́на, моё окно́, мои́ друзья́ (my house / car / window / friends)
• э́тот дом, э́та маши́на, э́то окно́, э́ти дома́ (this house / car / window — these houses)

So once you understand adjective agreement, you already understand how a large part of the Russian noun phrase works.

Common mistakes

• Using the dictionary form for every noun. The dictionary gives the masculine form, but it must be changed for feminine and neuter nouns.
  но́вый маши́на (wrong) → но́вая маши́на (correct)
• Matching by meaning instead of by the noun’s ending. Gender comes from the noun itself.
  краси́вый пла́тье (wrong) → краси́вое пла́тье (correct — пла́тье is neuter)
• Forgetting the spelling rule. After г, к, х, ж, ш, щ, ч the masculine is -ий, not -ый.
  ру́сскый (wrong) → ру́сский (correct)
• Changing the adjective but not the noun (or the reverse) in another case. Both words move together.
  в но́вый до́ме (wrong) → в но́вом до́ме (correct)
• Ignoring animacy in the accusative. A living being needs the genitive-like ending.
  ви́жу но́вый студе́нт (wrong) → ви́жу но́вого студе́нта (correct)

Summary

• A Russian adjective agrees with its noun in gender, number and case.
• The noun decides; the adjective follows. The dictionary form is masculine nominative singular.
• Standard (hard) nominative endings: -ый (m), -ая (f), -ое (n), -ые (pl).
• In the plural, all three genders share one ending.
• Soft adjectives use -ий, -яя, -ее, -ие; after г, к, х, ж, ш, щ, ч the spelling rule gives -ий / -ие.
• When the ending is stressed, the masculine is -о́й (большо́й).
• In other cases, the adjective copies the noun’s case — see the declensions article for the full tables. In the accusative, watch out for animacy.
• Adjectives normally stand before their noun, and several can stack — each one agrees.
• Possessives (мой) and demonstratives (э́тот) agree in the same way.