Russian Genitive Case in the Plural

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Practice this lesson with interactive exercises:

In this lesson, you will learn how to use the Genitive Case in the plural.

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

  1. How to use the Genitive Case with plural nouns;
  2. How to use the Genitive Case with plural adjectives;
  3. How to use the Genitive Case with plural possessive pronouns.

If there is any specific part of the lesson you would like to learn first, you can go straight to it by clicking on the titles above.

If you don’t know yet when you should use the Genitive Case in Russian or how to use it with nouns and adjectives in the singular, you can check out our complete lesson about this subject:

Genitive Case in the Singular

The Genitive Case of Nouns in the Plural

In order to use the Genitive Case in the plural correctly, you need to learn 5 rules.

Let’s take a look at each of them individually.

1) Remove the last letter of nouns that end in А and О:

  • дело - дел (thing to do)
  • машина - машин (car)

For example:

Note that you can click on all the underlined words to see their meanings, examples, cases and conjugations in our dictionary.

If, after removing А or О, the plural noun ends in two consonants, we often add the vowel О or Е between the two consonants.

For example, if we remove О from the noun окно (window), we will have окн, which ends in two consonants. So, we need to add О between the two consonants: окон.

This rule is normally confusing for learners, but the good news is that there aren't many words that follow it.

So, it will probably be easier for you to memorize these words individually as you learn Russian instead of focusing on the rule itself.

Let's take a look at another example:

After removing А from the word девочка (girl), we have девочк, which also ends in two consonants. So, we add Е between the two consonants: девочек.

2) Add ОВ to masculine nouns that end in a consonant:

  • студент - студентов (student)
  • город - городов (city)

For example:

However, if the masculine noun ends in ж, ш, щ and ч, add ЕЙ instead:

  • врач - врачей (doctor)
  • ключ - ключей (key)

For example:

3) When masculine and feminine nouns end in Ь, replace Ь with ЕЙ:

  • ночь - ночей (night)
  • словарь - словарей (dictionary)

For example:

4) When neuter nouns end in Е, just add Й:

  • море - морей (sea)
  • поле - полей (field)

For example:

5) When masculine nouns end in Й, replace Й with ЕВ:

  • герой - героев (hero)
  • музей - музеев (museum)

For example:

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

Gender in Russian

Some nouns have irregular forms in the genitive plural. The most common of them are:

The Genitive Case of Adjectives in the Plural

Plural adjectives in the Genitive Case have two endings: ИХ and ЫХ.

In most cases, you will use the ending ЫХ:

  • молодые - молодых (young)
  • красные - красных (red)
  • старые - старых (old)

For example:

You will use ИХ when the last consonant of the adjective is г, к, х, ж, ч, ш or щ:

  • хорошие - хороших (good)
  • русские - русских (Russian)
  • свежие - свежих (fresh)

For example:

The Genitive Case of Possessive Pronouns in the Plural

Here is a table of all the possessive pronouns in the genitive plural:

Let's take a look at some sentences with these pronouns:

And that’s it. Now you know how to use the Genitive Case in the Plural.

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