GrammarDeclensions

Russian adjectives decline — they change their ending to match the noun they describe in gender, number and case. You already met the idea in adjective agreement; this article gives you the full set of endings for every case.

The good news: once you know the pattern for one adjective, you know it for nearly all of them. And there are several shortcuts that reduce the amount you actually have to memorise.

The stem types

Adjective endings come in three closely related versions, depending on the last consonant of the stem:

• Hard — the default: но́вый (new)
• Soft — stem ending in a soft -н-: си́ний (blue)
• Spelling-rule — stems ending in г, к, х or ж, ш, щ, ч: ру́сский, хоро́ший

They are not really different declensions: You can learn the hard type first and for the others you just have some predictable vowel swaps (ы → и, о → е).

The hard adjective: но́вый

This is the master table:

***** Masculine and plural have two accusative forms, depending on the noun's animacy/aliveness. So for inanimate nouns (things) you use the first form (same as nominative) and for animate nouns (people or animals) you use the second form (same as the genitive). More on this below.

Three tips

1. Masculine and neuter are almost the same

They differ only in the nominative (and therefore the inanimate accusative). Everywhere else they are identical: но́вого, но́вому, но́вым, но́вом. Learn them together.

2. The feminine is super simple

Look down the feminine column: It is the ending -ой for almost all cases. Only the nominative (-ая) and the accusative (-ую) are different.

3. The plural ignores gender

One set of plural endings serves masculine, feminine and neuter together: но́вые, но́вых, но́вым, но́выми.

The accusative depends on animacy

The accusative is the one case with a choice, and it works exactly as it does for nouns. In the masculine singular and in the plural, the ending copies either the nominative or the genitive, depending on whether the noun is alive:

• Thing (inanimate) → like the nominative: Я ви́жу но́вый дом. (I see the new house.)
• Living being (animate) → like the genitive: Я зна́ю но́вого студе́нта. (I know the new student.)

The feminine and neuter have no such choice: feminine always uses -ую, and neuter always matches its nominative (но́вое). So in the feminine, animacy simply never shows up — a thing and a living being look the same:

• Я ви́жу но́вую кни́гу. (I see the new book.) — a thing
• Я ви́жу но́вую сестру́. (I see my new sister.) — a person, still -ую

Each case in a sentence

The adjective always takes the same case as its noun, but keeps its own endings (which differ from the noun’s). Here is но́вый across all six cases:

• Nominative — но́вый дом стои́т здесь. (The new house stands here.)
• Genitive — дверь но́вого до́ма (the door of the new house)
• Dative — Я иду́ к но́вому до́му. (I am walking towards the new house.)
• Accusative — Я ви́жу но́вый дом. (I see the new house.)
• Instrumental — Я живу́ ря́дом с но́вым до́мом. (I live next to the new house.)
• Prepositional — Мы в но́вом до́ме. (We are in the new house.)

Soft adjectives: си́ний

Soft adjectives use the same endings but just with soft vowels: ы→и, о→е, а→я, у→ю.

Genuinely soft adjectives are a small group and many describe time or place: после́дний (last), дома́шний (home), вчера́шний (yesterday’s). See the full list here.

Spelling-rule adjectives

These look hard but are guided by two Russian spelling rules: after г, к, х, ж, ш, щ, ч you write и instead of ы; and after ж, ш, щ, ч an unstressed о becomes е. Nothing else changes.

If you are a beginner, just ignore these advanced rules for now, people will still easily understand you when you conjugate your adjectives according to the first table.

Velar stems (г, к, х): ы→и

Only the endings that would contain ы are affected (nominative masculine, and the whole plural): they use и instead.

Hushing stems (ж, ш, щ, ч)

Here both rules apply: ы → и and unstressed о → е, so the endings look soft (-его, -ему, -ем, -ей) but the feminine and neuter still use -ая, -ую, -ое.

Common mistakes

• Mixing up the instrumental and prepositional endings. Masculine instrumental is -ым, prepositional is -ом.
  в но́вым до́ме (wrong) → в но́вом до́ме (correct)
• Ignoring animacy in the accusative. A living being takes the genitive-like ending.
  Я зна́ю но́вый студе́нта (wrong) → Я зна́ю но́вого студе́нта (correct)
• Giving the feminine different oblique endings. One form, -ой, does all four.
  у но́вая маши́ны (wrong) → у но́вой маши́ны (correct)
• Forgetting the spelling rule. After к you cannot write ы.
  ру́сскым (wrong) → ру́сским (correct)

Summary

• Adjectives decline to match the noun in gender, number and case, using their own endings.
• Start from the hard pattern (но́вый); only later add the soft (си́ний) and spelling-rule (ру́сский, хоро́ший) which are only slight variations of the same table with ы → и / о → е swaps.
• Masculine = neuter everywhere except the nominative.
• The feminine uses one ending — -ой (soft -ей) — for genitive, dative, instrumental and prepositional.
• The plural is the same for all genders.
• In the accusative, masculine singular and plural follow animacy (thing → nominative, living being → genitive).
• Remember that -ого / -его is pronounced with a “v”.