Last time we talked about time of the day, weeks, months and more. At the end of the lesson you had to translate a few sentences and phrases into English. Now you can check if you did it correctly.

1. Ann goes to music school on Monday. Энн пойдёт в музыкальную школу в понедельник
2. Tomorrow evening. Завтра вечером
3. On Monday in the morning. В понедельник утром
4. Tomorrow early evening. Завтра рано вечером
5. It snows in winter. Зимой идёт снег.
6. Mike’s birthday is in August. День рождения Майка в августе.

Today we will get back to the nouns and explore the world of plurals. Russian nouns (like in all other the languages I know) change for number. A noun can be either singular or plural. By default in dictionaries you will find a singular form.

Now, if we think about English we will see that we do not have any problems with the plural form at all, right?

dog-dogs

house-houses

doll – dolls

Other than few exception such as

foot – feet

child – children

goose – geese

you do not really face any complications with that. In Russian it is unfortunately not as simple.

But in the table below you will be able to find the patterns based on the gender of the noun (remember: masculine, feminine and neuter).

Download the table in PDF

Of course, this rule is not safe from exceptions. There are some masculine nouns that can have –а or –я ending.

дом – house – дома – houses

лес – forest – леса – forests

глаз – eye – глаза – eyes

сорт – sort – сорта – sorts

поезд – train – поезда – trains

город – city – города – cities

остров – island – острова – islands

учитель – teacher – учителя – teachers

The endings -a and –я are always stressed.

Also, some masculine and neuter nouns might have the ending –ья in the plural form.

брат – brother – братья – brothers

стул – chair – стулья – chairs

лист – leaf – листья – leaves

друг – friend – друзья – friends

сын – son – сыновья – sons

дерево – tree – деревья – trees

One more thing I would like you to get to know today is the construction “У меня есть…” (I have). We will need it in our next lesson.

 

Exercises:

1. Please build the plural form for the following nouns. Check the correct form in the dictionary if you have to.

Дорога, стол, книга, собака, дверь, крокодил, окно, ведро, театр, цирк, школа, комната, телевизор, дерево, плащ, тетрадь, старуха.

2. Tell us what do you have. Use the construction “У меня есть…” to create 10 sentences. Use both singular and plural forms of nouns.

Example: У меня есть собака. У меня есть собаки. (I have a dog. I have dogs.)