Nominative Case
The nominative case in Russian is used in the "subject" of the sentence and answers the question who/what.
Example: Студент любит спать / The student loves to sleep. Студент is the subject of the sentence and is therefore in the nominative case.
Exceptions:
1- The nominative case in Russian is used with the preposition "за" in an interrogative sentence.
Example: Что она за матерь? What kind of mother is she?
2- The nominative case in Russian is also used with the preposition В to indicate that somebody has joined an orginization or profession or role:
Example: Вова пошёл в политики. Vova went into politics.
Masculine Russian nouns in the nominative case:
| Malculine noun ending with: | Example | Singular nominiative ending suffix | Singular nominative form | Plural nominiative ending suffix | Plural nominative form |
| any consonants other than below | начальник | (none) | |||
| *к, г, х, ш, щ, ж, ч | (horse) | (none) | |||
| (train) | (none) | ||||
| (none) |
*Never use the letter "ы" with the consonants к, г, х, ш, щ, ж, ч. See Russian Spelling Rules for more information.