The Accusative Case in Russian

In this lesson, you will learn everything you need to know about the Accusative Case.

To make things easier, I divided the lesson into four parts:

When and how to use the Accusative Case
Nouns in the Accusative Case
Adjectives in the Accusative Case
Possessive Pronouns in the Accusative Case

The above titles have links. If there is any subject you would like to study first, you can click on the title and go straight to the part you need.

In this lesson, we won't talk about the Accusative Case in the plural because we already have a complete lesson about it:

Accusative Case in the Plural

When to use the Accusative Case in Russian

The Accusative Case is used mainly in three situations:

to express the direct object of a sentence;
after certain prepositions;
to denote time in non-prepositional phrases.

Let’s take a look at each of these situations one by one.

1) The Direct Object

The main use of the Accusative Case is to express the direct object of a sentence. So, let's start by learning what a direct object is and how to identify it.

The direct object is the thing or person that is directly affected by the action of the verb.

In other words, it’s a thing or a person that suffers the action.

Let’s take a look at a simple sentence:

Мэри читает книгу.
(Mary reads a book)

In this sentence, we have:

1) Мэри (Mary), which is the subject, or the person who carries out the action;

2) читает (reads), which is the verb, or the action of the sentence;

3) and книгу (a book), which is the direct object, or the thing that is directly affected by the action.

So, книгу is in the accusative case because it is the direct object of the sentence.

Note that the base form of the word книгу is книга and the ending у is added to show that the word is in the accusative case. We will talk about how nouns change in the accusative case in detail in the next part of the lesson.

Let's take a look at some other sentences with a direct object:

Он читает газету.
(He reads a newspaper)
Мы смотрим комедию.
(We watch a comedy)

In these sentences, газету (newspaper) and комедию (comedy) are direct objects. That’s why they are both in the accusative case.

A good way to identify the direct object in a sentence is to think about the questions of кого (whom) or что (what).

Most of the time, you will answer these two questions using the accusative case.

For example:

Что Мэри читает?
(What does Mary read?)
Мэри читает книгу.
(Mary reads a book)
Кого он видит?
(Who does he see?)
Он видит девушку.
(He sees a girl)

Simple, right?

Let’s move on to the next situation!

2) Accusative Prepositions

The following are prepositions after which nouns take the accusative case:

в (to / into)
на (to / onto)
под (under)
за (for / behind)
про (about)
через (through / in)

Note that the prepositions в, на, под and за are used with the Accusative Case only when we talk about direction.

If you use в and на to describe the location of an object, you need to use the Prepositional Case.

And if you use под and за to describe the location of an object, you need to use the Instrumental Case.

As you can see, there are only six accusative prepositions to memorize.

Let’s take a look at some examples:

Маша идёт в школу.
(Masha is going to school)
Поставь велосипед за дом.
(Put the bicycle behind the house)
Мы говорим про маму.
(We are talking about Mom)

3) Time Phrases in the Accusative Case

The accusative case can also be used to express time in phrases without prepositions.

For example:

Всю неделю шёл снег.
(It snowed all week)
Всё лето было жарко.
(It was hot all summer)
Он ходит в спортзал каждую неделю.
(He goes to the gym every week)

As you probably noticed the time expressions in the above sentences all contain different forms of the words весь and каждый. So, whenever you use these words to talk about time, you need to put them into the accusative case.

Let's take a look at the most common time expressions with the word весь:

весь день (all day)
весь месяц (all month)
весь год (all year)
всю ночь (all night)
всю неделю (all week)
всю зиму (all winter)
всю весну (all spring)
всё лето (all summer)
все выходные (all weekend)

And these are the most common expressions with the word каждый:

каждый день (every day)
каждый месяц (every month)
каждый год (every year)
каждую ночь (every night)
каждую неделю (every week)
каждую пятницу (every Friday)
каждую зиму (every winter)
каждые выходные (every weekend)
каждое лето (every summer)

And those are all the situations in which you will use the accusative case.

Now let’s talk about how nouns change in the accusative case.

Nouns in the Accusative Case

To put a noun into the accusative case, you need to change its ending.

The good news is that you don't have to change most of the masculine and neuter nouns. The accusative case mainly affects feminine nouns.

If you are not familiar with the concept of gender in the Russian language, you can check out our complete lesson about this subject clicking here.

So, let's take a look at the rules you will have to learn. I divided them into 4 common patterns:

1) When a noun ends in А, replace А with У:

машина – машину (car)
сестра – сестру (sister)
мама – маму (mom)
дедушка – дедушку (grandfather)

2) When a noun ends in Я, replace Я with Ю:

тётя – тётю (aunt)
дядя – дядю (uncle)
семья – семью (family)
Настя – Настю (Nastya)

3) When an animate masculine noun (denoting a person or animal) ends in a consonant, add the letter А:

брат – брата (brother)
кот – кота (cat)
друг – друга (friend)
студент – студента (student)

4) When an animate masculine noun ends in Ь or Й, replace the last letter with Я:

учитель – учителя (teacher)
конь – коня (horse)
герой – героя (hero)
Андрей – Андрея (Andrey)

Besides nouns, you will also need to change personal pronouns in the accusative case. Here is a table with their forms.

Let's take a look at a few sentences with personal pronouns in the accusative case:

Я люблю тебя.
(I love you)
Мы знаем его.
(We know him)
Они ждут нас.
(They're waiting for us)

Now, let's learn how to use adjectives in the accusative case.

Adjectives in the Accusative Case

Adjectives in the accusative case change differently depending on the gender of the nouns they describe.

Adjectives used with feminine nouns:

Adjectives used with feminine nouns take two endings: ую and юю.

1) If the adjective ends in АЯ, replace АЯ with УЮ:

красивая девушка – красивую девушку
(a beautiful girl)
новая машина – новую машину
(a new car)
старая картина – старую картину
(an old picture)
добрая женщина – добрую женщину
(a kind woman)

2) If the adjective ends in ЯЯ, replace ЯЯ with ЮЮ:

зимняя ночь – зимнюю ночь
(a winter night)
синяя футболка – синюю футболку
(a blue T-shirt)
ранняя весна – раннюю весну
(early spring)

Adjectives used with masculine nouns:

Adjectives used with masculine nouns change only if the nouns they describe are animate.

Animate nouns refer to human beings and animals (man, doctor, woman, dog, etc.)

Inanimate nouns refer to objects and abstract concepts that are not alive (table, love, money, chair, etc.)

When adjectives appear before masculine inanimate nouns in the accusative case, their endings are the same as in the nominative case.

In this lesson, I will go over the main endings of adjectives in the Nominative Case.

To learn more about the Nominative Case, you can check out our complete lesson about it clicking here.

1) Most adjectives end in ЫЙ:

новый дом (a new house)
старый стол (an old table)
чёрный телефон (a black phone)

2) Some of them end in ИЙ:

хороший магазин (a good store)
русский роман (a Russian novel)
маленький стул (a small chair)

3) And a few of them end in ОЙ:

плохой день (a bad day)
большой парк (a big park)
дорогой подарок (an expensive gift)

Now, adjectives used with animate masculine nouns have the same endings as in the genitive case.

If you want to learn everything about the genitive case, you can check out our complete lesson about it clicking here.

1) When an adjective ends in ЫЙ and ОЙ, replace these endings with ОГО:

новый студент – нового студента
(a new student)
плохой человек – плохого человека
(a bad person)
молодой человек – молодого человека
(a young man)

2) When an adjective ends in ИЙ, replace ИЙ with ЕГО:

хороший друг – хорошего друга
(a good friend)

Note that when the last consonant of the adjective is К or Х, it takes the ending ОГО instead of ЕГО:

русский человек – русского человека
(a Russian person)
маленький ребёнок – маленького ребёнка
(a small child)

Adjectives used with neuter nouns:

Adjectives used with neuter nouns also have the same endings as in the nominative case.

1) Most adjectives end in ОЕ:

красное яблоко (a red apple)
длинное письмо (a long letter)
тёплое море (a warm sea)

2) Some of them end in ЕЕ:

раннее утро (early morning)
хорошее яблоко (a good apple)
летнее платье (a summer dress)

Possessive Pronouns in the Accusative Case

Here is a table of possessive pronouns in the accusative case:

	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Plural
my	мой	мою	моё	мои
your	твой	твою	твоё	твои
his	его	его	его	его
her	её	её	её	её
our	наш	нашу	наше	наши
your	ваш	вашу	ваше	ваши
their	их	их	их	их