Russian · grammar
Russian pronouns, declined and explained
Every personal pronoun through all six cases, and the possessives with their one famous exception. Then the small grammar carriers: the reflexive свой that English cannot hear, and the -нибудь pronouns that power questions. Every form below comes stress-marked from the same verified data that powers the app.
Aurélien CuvelierSep 2, 2026The personal pronouns, all six cases
Eight pronouns, six cases. This table is most of what people mean by Russian pronouns.
Pronouns decline just like nouns do, and they decline irregularly: меня does not look like я, and no rule will derive one from the other. The good news is that the table below is a closed list. Learn these forms and you have learned every personal pronoun Russian will ever show you.
| meaning | nom | gen | dat | acc | ins | prep |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| I, me | я | меня | мне | меня | мной | мне |
| you (informal sg) | ты | тебя | тебе | тебя | тобой | тебе |
| he, it | он | его / него | ему / нему | его / него | им / ним | нём |
| she, it | она | её / неё | ей / ней | её / неё | ей / ней | ней |
| it (neuter) | оно | его / него | ему / нему | его / него | им / ним | нём |
| we, us | мы | нас | нам | нас | нами | нас |
| you (pl / formal) | вы | вас | вам | вас | вами | вас |
| they, them | они | их / них | им / ним | их / них | ими / ними | них |
Where a cell shows two forms, the second is what appears after a preposition: third-person pronouns grow an initial н there, so его becomes него and ему becomes нему. The prepositional case only ever occurs after a preposition, which is why нём is the only form it has.
Ты or вы: the choice that never goes away
Russian has two words for you, and the split is social, not grammatical. Ты is for friends, family and children; вы is for strangers, officials, elders and any group of people. Every verb agrees with the choice, so the decision is audible in the whole sentence, not just the pronoun.
Ты хочешь чаю?
Do you want some tea?
from our dictionary
Вы говорите по-английски?
Do you speak English?
from our dictionary
How the same line runs through greetingsThe phrasebook, where every phrase is register-labeled
The possessives: four that decline, three that never do
Мой, твой, наш and ваш behave like adjectives: they agree with the owned thing in gender, number and case. The full paradigm of мой is below; твой, наш and ваш decline the same way.
| masculine | neuter | feminine | plural | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| nom | мой | моё | моя | мои |
| gen | моего | моего | моей | моих |
| dat | моему | моему | моей | моим |
| acc | моего / мой | моё | мою | моих / мои |
| ins | моим | моим | моей / моею | моими |
| prep | моём | моём | моей | моих |
Where a cell shows two forms, the accusative depends on whether the owned thing is animate.
Его, её and их never change
The third-person possessives are frozen: his, her and their are его, её and их whatever the gender, number or case of the owned thing. Learners decline them by analogy with мой; Russians never do. In our dictionary each of the three is stored with exactly one form, because that is all there is.
Это его дом и его сад.
This is his house and his garden.
from our dictionary
Свой: the possessive that points back
Свой means one's own and always points back at the subject of the clause. It declines exactly like мой, and it replaces мой, твой or его whenever the owner is the person doing the acting.
That replacement is the trap. In the sentence below, свою tells you he took his own book; with его instead, the book would belong to someone else. English cannot hear this distinction, which is why it has to be learned as grammar.
Он взял свою книгу.
He took his own book.
from our dictionary
Себя has no nominative
The reflexive себя means oneself and serves every person: myself, yourself, themselves are all себя. It cannot be a subject, so its nominative simply does not exist; the paradigm starts at the genitive and runs through five cases.
| gen | себя |
| dat | себе |
| acc | себя |
| ins | собой |
| prep | себе |
Он видит себя в зеркале.
He sees himself in the mirror.
from our dictionary
Who, nobody, anybody
Кто (who) and что (what) decline like everything else: asking about people means choosing between кто and кого the same way you choose between он and его.
Attach -то and the pronoun means someone specific but unnamed; attach -нибудь and it means anyone at all, which is why questions and requests prefer it. The two suffixes never swap.
Negative pronouns double up: никто demands не on the verb, and the sentence keeps both. To an English eye that is a double negative; in Russian it is the only correct way to say nobody does something.
Кто-нибудь есть дома?
Is anyone home?
from our dictionary
В этом доме никто не живёт.
Nobody lives in this house.
from our dictionary
Questions people ask
What is the difference between ты and вы?
Ты is the informal you, for friends, family and children. Вы is the formal you and also the plural you, for strangers, officials and groups. The verb changes with the pronoun, so the choice runs through the whole sentence. When in doubt, вы is the safe default.
Why does его become него?
After a preposition, third-person pronouns take an initial н: его becomes него, ему becomes нему, им becomes ним. The н belongs to the pronoun form, not to the preposition, and the table above lists both variants wherever they exist.
What is the difference between кто-то and кто-нибудь?
Кто-то is someone specific whose identity you do not know or do not name. Кто-нибудь is anyone at all, with no one in mind, which makes it the natural choice in questions and requests. Swapping them sounds immediately off to a native ear.
Learn the forms where they live
A table shows you the system. The app makes it stick: every pronoun form here is tappable in real stress-marked sentences and comes back for review just before you would forget it.
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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