The Russian Nominative Case: Endings & Examples

The nominative is the case you already know - it is the dictionary form of every noun and the case of the subject. Master it first: everything else is a change away from this baseline.

What the nominative case does

The nominative answers the question кто? / что? - "who?" or "what?" It marks the subject of the sentence: the person or thing doing the action. In «студент читает» ("the student reads"), студент is nominative because the student is the one reading.

It is also the form you find in the dictionary and the form used after the verb "to be" in the present (which Russian usually leaves out): «Москва - столица» ("Moscow is the capital") - both nouns are nominative.

When to use it

Use the nominative for the subject (the doer), for naming or labeling something, and as the default "citation" form when you look a word up. No preposition ever governs the nominative - if there is a preposition, you are in a different case.

Because the nominative is the unchanged stem form, the real work in Russian is learning how the other five cases reshape it. Think of the nominative as zero - the starting point every other ending departs from.

Nominative singular endings

The nominative singular is simply the dictionary form, and its ending is what tells you the gender: a bare consonant (or -ь/-й) is usually masculine, -а/-я is usually feminine, and -о/-е is usually neuter. The table below shows the pattern.

Окончания: Именительный (единственное число)
Род	Твёрдая основа	Мягкая основа	Примечание / пример
Мужской	-(консонант)	-ь, -й	стол, конь, чай - the dictionary form
Женский	-а	-я, -ь	книга, неделя, ночь
Средний	-о	-е, -ё	окно, море

Примеры предложений

Студент читает книгу.
Student chitayet knigu.
The student is reading a book.
Москва - большой город.
Moskva - bolshoy gorod.
Moscow is a big city.
Моя сестра врач.
Moya sestra vrach.
My sister is a doctor.
Окно открыто.
Okno otkryto.
The window is open.
Где автобус?
Gde avtobus?
Where is the bus?
Это мой друг.
Eto moy drug.
This is my friend.
Кофе горячий.
Kofe goryachiy.
The coffee is hot.
Собака спит.
Sobaka spit.
The dog is sleeping.

Практика: какой это падеж?

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Студент читает книгу.

Student chitayet knigu.

Why is «Студент» in this case?

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FAQ

Is the nominative the same as the dictionary form?

Yes. The nominative singular is exactly the form you find in a dictionary, so you already know it for every noun you have learned. The other cases are changes away from this form.

Can a preposition take the nominative?

No. No Russian preposition governs the nominative. If a noun follows a preposition, it will be in one of the other five cases.

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From the dictionary form to all six cases

The nominative is your baseline. Daily Cyrillic drills how it shifts into the other five cases with spaced repetition and audio.

Начать бесплатно All 6 cases overview