Each example below has three parts: the original text, a literal gloss describing how every word works, and a natural translation. The glosses use a few shorthand labels so they stay short. Don't worry about memorising them — this is a reference you can come back to. Person and number · 1sg / 2sg / 3sg — first / second / third person singular (I, you, he/she/it) · 1pl / 2pl / 3pl — first / second / third person plural (we, you-all, they) Gender and case · m / f / n — masculine / feminine / neuter · sg / pl — singular / plural · m.sg — combined: masculine singular (and similarly f.pl, n.sg, etc.) · NOM / ACC / GEN / DAT / INS / LOC — grammatical cases (nominative/accusative/genitive/dative/instrumental/locative) — which role the word plays in the sentence Tense and aspect · PRES — present · PRET — preterite (a finished past event) · IMPF — imperfect (an ongoing or habitual past situation) · FUT — future · PERF — perfect (an action completed with present relevance) · PROG — progressive (action in progress, e.g. am eating) · COND — conditional (would…) Mood · IND — indicative (regular statement) · SUBJ — subjunctive (uncertainty, wishes, doubts) · IMP — imperative (commands) · INF — infinitive (dictionary form: to go, to eat) Other · REFL — reflexive (action on oneself: myself, yourself) · PERS — personal a (Spanish only — marks a human direct object) · HON — honorific (extra-polite form, common in Japanese/Korean) · TOP / SUB / OBJ — topic / subject / object markers (Japanese, Korean) · CL — classifier (Chinese, Japanese, Korean — a counter word for nouns) · NEG — negation
Russian is written in the Cyrillic alphabet, which has 33 letters: 10 vowels (а, е, ё, и, о, у, ы, э, ю, я), 21 consonants, and 2 signs that have no sound of their own. The soft sign (ь) palatalises the preceding consonant, making it sound 'softer', while the hard sign (ъ) keeps a following vowel separate from the preceding consonant. Several letters look like Latin letters but sound completely different — these are 'false friends' to watch for: В sounds like 'V', Н sounds like 'N', Р is rolled 'R', С sounds like 'S', and Х sounds like 'KH' (as in Scottish 'loch'). Recognising these false friends early prevents a lot of confusion.
Russian default word order is Subject-Verb-Object, like English. But because case endings on nouns mark their grammatical role, word order is highly flexible and is used mainly for emphasis or information flow: the most important or new information typically goes at the end of the sentence. Moving the object before the verb does not change who does what — the case endings keep that clear. New information tends to come last; given/known information comes first. This means you can rearrange words to highlight what matters, without ambiguity.
Russian has no words for 'a', 'an', or 'the'. A noun by itself can mean either 'a book' or 'the book' depending on context. Definiteness is conveyed by word order (known information first, new last), by demonstratives like этот ('this') and тот ('that'), or by context alone. When translating into English, you must add articles; when translating from English, you simply omit them. This is one of the easiest features of Russian for English speakers — there is nothing to memorize, just nothing to add.
Every Russian noun is masculine, feminine, or neuter. You can usually tell from the ending of the dictionary (nominative) form. Masculine nouns end in a consonant (стол 'table', дом 'house'). Feminine nouns typically end in -а or -я (мама 'mother', земля 'earth'). Neuter nouns end in -о or -е (окно 'window', море 'sea'). Nouns ending in -ь (soft sign) can be either masculine or feminine and must be memorized (день 'day' is masc; ночь 'night' is fem). Gender controls adjective agreement, past-tense verb forms, and pronoun choice.
Russian nouns, pronouns, and adjectives change their endings depending on their role in the sentence. Nominative is the subject ('who/what does'). Accusative is the direct object ('whom/what'). Genitive shows possession or 'of' ('whose'), and is used after most numbers and after negation. Dative is the indirect object ('to whom'). Instrumental shows the means or instrument ('with what/by whom'). Prepositional only ever appears after certain prepositions (в 'in', на 'on', о 'about') and indicates location or topic. Each preposition governs a specific case, so the case tells you the relationship.
Nominative forms: я 'I', ты 'you (singular, informal)', он 'he/it (masc)', она 'she/it (fem)', оно 'it (neut)', мы 'we', вы 'you (plural or formal singular)', они 'they'. Like nouns, pronouns decline through all six cases. Common non-nominative forms to recognise: меня/мне/мной ('me' in acc-gen / dat / instr), тебя/тебе/тобой ('you' sg), его/ему/им ('him'), её/ей/ей ('her'), нас/нам/нами ('us'), вас/вам/вами ('you' pl), их/им/ими ('them'). After prepositions, third-person pronouns add н- (у него 'at his place').
This is the single most important grammatical feature of Russian. Almost every verb comes in two forms: imperfective (process, repeated action, ongoing) and perfective (a single completed action with a result). Дictionaries list them as pairs: писать / написать ('to write'), читать / прочитать ('to read'), делать / сделать ('to do'). Imperfective answers 'what was happening?'; perfective answers 'what got done?'. Aspect determines tense forms: imperfective has past, present, and compound future; perfective has only past and (simple) future — it has no present, because a completed action cannot be in progress.
Only imperfective verbs have a present tense (perfective verbs cannot be 'happening now'). Verbs fall into two conjugation patterns. First conjugation (most -ать verbs): я работаю, ты работаешь, он/она работает, мы работаем, вы работаете, они работают ('to work'). Second conjugation (most -ить verbs): я говорю, ты говоришь, он/она говорит, мы говорим, вы говорите, они говорят ('to speak'). The endings change with person and number, but the subject pronoun is often included for clarity. There is no distinction between 'I work' and 'I am working' — one form covers both.
The past tense is wonderfully simple: drop the -ть of the infinitive and add -л for masculine subject, -ла for feminine, -ло for neuter, and -ли for plural. The form depends on the gender and number of the SUBJECT, not on person. So 'I read' is я читал (man speaking) or я читала (woman speaking). Both imperfective and perfective have past tenses, and the choice expresses meaning: читал = 'was reading / used to read'; прочитал = 'read (and finished)'. There is one past form total — no 'have read' vs 'read' distinction.
Russian has two future tenses, one for each aspect. The IMPERFECTIVE future is compound: conjugated быть ('to be') + imperfective infinitive. Forms of быть: я буду, ты будешь, он будет, мы будем, вы будете, они будут. So 'I will be reading' = я буду читать. The PERFECTIVE future uses the simple conjugation pattern (the same endings as the present tense, but applied to a perfective verb): я прочитаю 'I will read (and finish)', ты прочитаешь, он прочитает, etc. Choose imperfective future for ongoing/repeated future actions, perfective future for one-time completed future actions.
There are two key negative words. Не is placed immediately before whatever it negates (usually the verb): я не знаю 'I don't know'; не сегодня 'not today'. Нет means 'no' as an answer, and also 'there is/are not' (the negative existential), in which case the thing that is absent goes into the genitive: у меня нет книги 'I don't have a book' (literally 'at me [there is] no of-book'). Russian uses double or even triple negation freely: никто никогда ничего не говорит 'nobody ever says anything' (lit. 'no-one never nothing not says').
Yes/no questions are most often formed by intonation alone — the word order does not change. A rising tone on the key word turns a statement into a question: Ты дома? 'Are you home?'. More formal or emphatic yes/no questions use the particle ли, placed after the word being questioned: знаешь ли ты? 'do you know?'. Wh-questions use question words at the front: кто 'who', что 'what', где 'where', куда 'where to', когда 'when', почему 'why', как 'how', сколько 'how much/many', какой 'which/what kind of'. Question words also decline by case where applicable (кого 'whom', кому 'to whom').
In the nominative plural, masculine and feminine nouns generally take -ы (or -и after certain consonants): стол → столы 'tables', книга → книги 'books'. Neuter nouns take -а or -я: окно → окна 'windows', море → моря 'seas'. There are some irregular plurals to memorise (друг → друзья 'friends', человек → люди 'people', ребёнок → дети 'children'). Plural nouns also decline through all six cases with their own set of endings, often shared across genders (genitive plural is famously varied and worth special study). Adjectives and verbs agree with plural subjects regardless of gender.
Adjectives must agree with the noun they modify in gender, number, AND case. The basic nominative endings are: masc -ый/-ий/-ой (новый дом 'new house'), fem -ая/-яя (новая книга 'new book'), neut -ое/-ее (новое окно 'new window'), plural -ые/-ие (новые дома 'new houses'). When the noun changes case, the adjective changes its ending to match. So 'in the new house' is в новом доме (prepositional masc), 'with a new book' is с новой книгой (instrumental fem). Adjectives normally precede the noun, as in English.
In the present tense, the verb 'to be' (быть) is simply OMITTED. 'I am a student' is just я студент (literally 'I student'); 'this is a book' is это книга. Where English needs 'am/is/are', Russian writes nothing — sometimes a dash is used in writing between two nouns (Москва — столица 'Moscow is a capital'). The verb does exist in the past (был/была/было/были) and future (буду, будешь, etc.), where it works normally. There is also есть 'there is/are' for existence: у меня есть книга 'I have a book' (literally 'at me there-is book').
Russian is written in the Cyrillic alphabet, with 33 letters. Some look and sound like Latin letters (А а, К к, М м, О о, Т т). Some look familiar but sound different — false friends: В = 'v', Н = 'n', Р = 'r', С = 's', У = 'u', Х = 'kh'. Some are entirely new shapes: Ж = 'zh', Ц = 'ts', Ч = 'ch', Ш = 'sh', Щ = 'shch', Ю = 'yu', Я = 'ya', Й = short 'y', Э = 'e'. Two silent letters modify the consonant before them: Ь (soft sign) palatalises, Ъ (hard sign) separates. Spelling is largely phonetic.