Russian grammar · the case system
The nominative case in Russian
The nominative is the form words have in the dictionary, and the case of the subject: whoever or whatever is doing the action stands in the nominative. If you can ask who does this? and the word is the answer, it is nominative.
Aurélien CuvelierAug 10, 2026The endings, with a declined example per ending
Masculine
∅ / -й / -ь
стол · музей · словарь
Feminine
-а / -я / -ь
сестра · неделя
Neuter
-о / -е
окно · море
Plural
-ы / -и / -а
столы · словари · окна
The personal pronouns in this case
When to use it
The subject of the sentence
The doer of the action: Бабушка живёт (grandma lives), поезд идёт (the train is coming).
The dictionary form
The shape you look up and the shape flashcard apps usually stop at. It is the starting point of the whole declension, not the whole story.
Naming and pointing
After это in sentences like Это мой брат (this is my brother), the named thing stays nominative.
In a real sentence
Watch out
Not every is-sentence keeps the nominative. With стать and with быть in the past or future, the predicate slides into the instrumental: Он стал врачом, he became a doctor. The nominative's territory ends exactly where becoming begins.
The other cases
- The genitive case in Russian
- The dative case in Russian
- The accusative case in Russian
- The instrumental case in Russian
- The prepositional case in Russian
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Master the cases where they live: in real sentences
Written by
Aurélien Cuvelier Founder, NuanceDeck
Aurélien Cuvelier builds NuanceDeck: the app, and the verification pipeline behind its dictionary. Every entry is grounded in the official TORFL lexical minimum and a 20,000-word frequency corpus, and every example sentence passes a certification review before it ships.
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