Russian grammar

Russian grammar employs an Indo-European inflectional structure, with considerable adaptation.
Russian has a highly inflectional morphology, particularly in nominals. Russian literary syntax is a combination of a Church Slavonic heritage, a variety of loaned and adopted constructs, and a standardized vernacular foundation.
The spoken language has been influenced by the literary one, with some additional characteristic forms. Russian dialects show various non-standard grammatical features, some of which are archaisms or descendants of old forms discarded by the literary language.
Various terms are used to describe Russian grammar with the meaning they have in standard Russian discussions of historical grammar, as opposed to the meaning they have in descriptions of the English language; in particular, aorist, imperfect, etc., are considered verbal tenses, rather than aspects, because ancient examples of them are attested for both perfective and imperfective verbs. Russian also places the accusative case between the dative and the instrumental, and in the tables below, the accusative case appears between the nominative and genitive cases.

Nouns

Nominal declension involves six main cases – nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, and prepositional – in two numbers, and grammatical gender. Up to ten additional cases are identified in linguistics textbooks, although all of them are either incomplete or degenerate – the most recognized [|additional cases] are locative, partitive and vocative. Old Russian also had a third number, the dual, but it has been lost except for its use in the nominative and accusative cases with the numbers 1½, 2, 3 and 4, where it is now reanalyzed as genitive singular.
Russian has some nouns that only appear in the singular form, for example: малина, природа; also, approximately 600 words appear only in the plural form : деньги, ножницы.
More often than in many other Indo-European languages, Russian noun cases may supplant the use of prepositions entirely. Furthermore, every preposition is exclusively used with a particular case. Their usage can be summarised as:

nominative :
* main subject;
* default case to use outside sentences ;
* prepositions: ' kind of?'; в: 'join the ranks of' ;
accusative :
* direct object;
* some time expressions;
* prepositions indicating motion: в 'into, in', на 'onto ', за 'behind, after', под 'under';
* other prepositions: про 'about', через 'over, through', сквозь 'through';
genitive :
* possession – 'of' ;
* numerals and quantifiers;
* negated verbs to indicate total absence;
* some time expressions;
* prepositions: без 'without', вместо 'instead of', возле 'near', вокруг 'around', впереди 'ahead of', для 'for', до 'before', из 'from', из-за 'because of, from behind', от 'from', кроме 'except for', мимо 'past by', около 'near', после 'after', против 'against, opposite', среди 'among', у 'by', близ 'near', вдоль 'along', вне 'out of, outside', внутри 'inside';
* verbs: бояться 'afraid of', достигать 'reach', избегать 'avoid';
* adjectives: полный 'full of' ;
dative :
* indirect object – 'to' ;
* some time expressions;
* impersonal clauses: мне холодно – 'I am cold', lit. "to_me cold";
* age statements: мне двадцать лет – 'I am 20 ', lit. 'to_me 20 years';
* prepositions: по 'on', к 'to', благодаря 'thanks to';
* auxiliaries: нужно or надо 'need/must ', можно 'allowed', нельзя 'forbidden';
* verbs: верить 'believe', помочь 'help', советовать 'advise', звонить 'call', удивить 'amaze ';
instrumental :
* instrument used in the action or means by which action is carried out – 'by' ;
* logical subject of passive clause: письмо написано Иваном – 'the letter was written by Ivan';
* secondary direct object: его считают студентом – 'he is considered a student';
* durational time expressions;
* verbs: интересовать 'interest ', пользоваться 'use', занимать 'occupy ';
* associates of connective verbs: быть 'be', стать 'became', остаться 'remain', казаться 'appear to be', оказаться 'turn out to be';
* prepositions of position: за 'behind', перед 'in front of', над 'above', под 'below', между 'between', с ' with';
* adjective: довольный 'pleased by';
prepositional :
* prepositions of place: в 'inside', на 'on ';
* other prepositions: о 'about', при 'by/of/with';

Definite and indefinite articles do not exist in the Russian language. The sense conveyed by such articles can be determined in Russian by context. However, Russian also utilizes other means of expressing whether a noun is definite or indefinite:

The use of a direct object in the genitive instead of the accusative in negation signifies that the noun is indefinite, compare: Я не ви́жу кни́ги and Я не ви́жу кни́гу.
The same goes for certain verbs expressing a desire to achieve something: wait, wish, ask, want, etc. When the inanimate object is definite, the accusative is used; when it is indefinite, the genitive is used. Compare: Я жду автобус and Я жду автобуса.
The use of the numeral one sometimes signifies that the noun is indefinite, e.g.: Почему́ ты так до́лго? – Да так, встре́тил одного́ дру́га, пришло́сь поговори́ть.
Word order may also be used for this purpose; compare В ко́мнату вбежа́л ма́льчик and Ма́льчик вбежа́л в ко́мнату.
The plural form may signify indefiniteness: Вы мо́жете купи́ть э́то в магази́нах vs. Вы мо́жете купи́ть э́то в магази́не.

The category of animacy is relevant in Russian nominal and adjectival declension. Specifically, the accusative has two possible forms in many paradigms, depending on the animacy of the referent. For animate referents, the accusative form is generally identical to the genitive form. For inanimate referents, the accusative form is identical to the nominative form. This principle is relevant for masculine singular nouns of the second declension and adjectives, and for all plural paradigms. In the tables below, this behavior is indicated by the abbreviation 'N or G' in the row corresponding to the accusative case.
Russian uses three declensions:

The first declension is used for feminine nouns ending with -а/-я and some masculine nouns having the same form as those of feminine gender, such as па́па or дя́дя ; also, common-gender nouns like зади́ра are masculine or feminine depending on the person to which they refer.
The second declension is used for most masculine and neuter nouns.
The third declension is used for feminine nouns ending in ь.

A group of irregular "different-declension nouns", consists of a few neuter nouns ending in -мя and one masculine noun "way". However, these nouns and their forms have sufficient similarity with feminine third declension nouns that scholars such as Litnevskaya consider them to be non-feminine forms of this declension.
Nouns ending with -ий, -ия, -ие are written with -ии instead of -ие in prepositional : тече́ние – в ни́жнем тече́нии реки́ "streaming – in lower streaming of a river". However, if words and represent a compound preposition meaning – "while, during the time of" – they are written with -е: в тече́ние ча́са "in a time of an hour". For nouns ending in -ья, -ье, or -ьё, using -ьи in the prepositional is usually erroneous, but in poetic speech it may be acceptable : Весь день она́ лежа́ла в забытьи́.

First declension

Feminine and masculine nouns ending with а or vowel

	singular	plural
nominative	-а ^{-я, -ия}	-ы ^{-и, -ии}
accusative	-у ^{-ю, -ию}	N or G
genitive	-ы ^{-и, -ии}	∅ ^{-ь, -ий}
dative	-е ^{-е, -ии}	-ам ^{-ям, -иям}
instrumental	-ой ^{-ей, -ией}	-ами ^{-ями, -иями}
prepositional	-е ^{-е, -ии}	-ах ^{-ях, -иях}

Second declension

Masculine nouns ending with a consonant sound

Some singular nouns denoting groups of people may include the -ин- suffix before ending.

Neuter nouns

	singular	plural
nominative	-о ^-е	-а ^-я
accusative	-о ^-е	N or G
genitive	-а ^-я	∅ ^{-й, -ей}
dative	-у ^-ю	-ам ^-ям
instrumental	-ом ^-ем	-ами ^-ями
prepositional	-е ^-е	-ах ^-ях

Third declension

Neuter nouns ending with мя

	singular	plural
nominative	-я	-ена́ ^-ёна
accusative	-я	-ена́ ^-ёна
genitive	-ени	-ён ^-ён
dative	-ени	-ена́м ^-ёнам
instrumental	-енем	-ена́ми ^-ёнами
prepositional	-ени	-ена́х ^-ёнах

The noun путь "way, path"

The noun путь is often regarded as the only third-declension masculine noun.

	singular	plural
nominative	путь	пути́
accusative	путь	пути́
genitive	пути́	путе́й
dative	пути́	путя́м
instrumental	путём	путя́ми
prepositional	пути́	путя́х

Indeclinable nouns

Some nouns are not modified when they change number and case. This occurs especially when the ending appears not to match any declension pattern in the appropriate gender. A few examples of indeclinable nouns are:

Foreign words:
* ко́фе ;
* пальто́ ;
* бюро́ ;
Abbreviations:
* СССР ;
* США.

Additional cases

Some nouns use several additional cases. The most important of these are:

Locative : the most common minor case, used with some nouns after the prepositions of location на and в. With most nouns, the prepositional form is used in such instances. When there is a distinct locative, it takes the form of the dative ending but with the ending necessarily stressed. A few feminine nouns ending in ь have a locative form of independent origin, consisting of the singular genitive/dative/prepositional ending but with the ending necessarily stressed. This may mean it matches the dative, or it may take a unique form. For example, in во рту́ and в груди́, the locatives of рот and грудь match the dative forms ртy and груди́. In the case of рот, this differs from the prepositional ртe, but in the case of грудь the prepositional have merged with the locative. In в лесу́ and в связи́, the locatives of лес and связь differ from both the prepositional ле́се and свя́зи and the dative ле́сy and свя́зи.
Partitive, or second genitive: sometimes used instead of the accusative to imply, that only part of the object is affected by the verb: нали́ть ча́ю "to pour some tea" — from нали́ть чай "to pour the tea". This form may be also used after nouns meaning quantity: ча́шка ча́ю "a cup of tea".
Vocative : used to call or speak to a person. There are two types of vocative in modern Russian. The common Slavic vocative is archaic and survives only in fixed expressions, often relating to the divinity: Бо́же мой!, Го́споди!, моли́тва "О́тче наш". The modern vocative is produced from a first-declension noun by removing the vowel ending: мам, ты меня слышишь? "mom, can you hear me?" from ма́ма. It can only be applied to familiar terms for family members or close friends and diminutives of commonly used Slavic names: Ива́н — Ва́ня — Вань ; Мари́я — Ма́ша — Маш. It is frequently used in the informal spoken language with a certain number of nouns in the plural: "ребя́т, пойдёмте!" from ребя́та, "девча́т, смотри́те!" from девча́та.

Adjectives

A Russian adjective is usually placed before the noun it qualifies, and it agrees with the noun in case, gender, and number. With the exception of a few invariant forms borrowed from other languages, such as or ха́ки, most adjectives follow one of a small number of regular declension patterns. In modern Russian, the short form appears only in the nominative and is used when the adjective is in a predicative role: нов, нова́, но́во, новы́ are short forms of но́вый. Formerly short adjectives appeared in all other forms and roles, which are not used in the modern language, but are nonetheless understandable to Russian speakers as they are declined exactly like nouns of the corresponding gender.
Adjectives may be divided into three general groups:qualitative – denote a quality of the object; this is the only group that usually has degrees of comparison.relational – denote some sort of relationship; unlikely to act as a predicate or have a short form.possessive – denote belonging to a specific subject; have some declensional peculiarities.

Adjectival declension

The pattern described below holds true for full forms of most adjectives, except possessive ones. It is also used for substantivized adjectives as and for adjectival participles. Russian differentiates between hard-stem and soft-stem adjectives, shown before and after a slash sign.

The masculine and neuter genitive singular adjectival endings -ого and -его are pronounced as -ово and -ево.
After a sibilant or velar consonant, и is written instead of ы.
When the stress falls on the first syllable of the ending throughout the declension, the masculine adjective ends in -ой in the nominative singular: , compare .
The "хоро́шее rule" states that after a sibilant consonant, neuter adjectives end in -ее.
The masculine accusative singular and the accusative plural endings depend on animacy, as with nouns.
The instrumental feminine ending -ой/-ей has the archaic alternative form -ою/-ею for all adjectives, which has only a stylistic difference.
There are often stress changes in the short form. For example, the short forms of хоро́ший are хоро́ш, хороша́, хорошо́, хороши́, and the forms of но́вый are но́в, нова́, но́во, но́вы/новы́.
In the masculine singular short form, when a word-final consonant cluster is being formed after ending removal, an additional е or о "fleeting vowel" is inserted after the root, as in голо́дный – го́лоден, or у́зкий – у́зок.
Some adjectives have no short forms.

Comparison of adjectives

forms are usual only for qualitative adjectives and adverbs. Comparative and superlative synthetic forms are not part of the paradigm of original adjective but are different lexical items, since not all qualitative adjectives have them. A few adjectives have irregular forms that are declined as usual adjectives: большо́й 'big' – бо́льший 'bigger', хоро́ший 'good' – лу́чший 'better'. Most synthetically-derived comparative forms are derived by adding the suffix -е́е or -е́й to the adjective stem: кра́сный 'red' – красне́е 'redder'; these forms are difficult to distinguish from adverbs, whose comparative forms often coincide with those of their adjectival counterparts. Superlative synthetic forms are derived by adding the suffix -е́йш- or -а́йш- and additionally sometimes the prefix наи-, or using a special comparative form with the prefix наи-: до́брый 'kind' – добре́йший 'the kindest', большо́й 'big' – наибо́льший 'the biggest'.
An alternative is to add an adverb to the positive form of the adjective. The adverbs used for this are бо́лее 'more' / ме́нее 'less' and са́мый 'most' / наибо́лее 'most' / наиме́нее 'least': for example, до́брый 'kind' – бо́лее до́брый 'kinder' – са́мый до́брый 'the kindest'. This way is rarely used if special comparative forms exist.

Possessive adjectives

Possessive adjectives are less frequently used in Russian than in most other Slavic languages, but are in use. They respond to the questions чей? чья? чьё? чьи? and denote only animate possessors. See section below for possessive adjectives relating to pronoun possessors.
Possessive adjectives relating to an explicit noun possessor follow two declension models:

"Soft" possessive adjectives, often relating to an animal possessor, e.g. ры́бий "of fish", but not always, e.g. Бо́жий "God's"
"Hard" possessive adjectives, often relating to a possessor person, but again not always, e.g. крокоди́лов "crocodile's" as in крокоди́ловы слёзы "crocodile tears".
In both tables below, "↑ or ↓" means "like the nominative with an inanimate noun, like the genitive with an animate noun";
* means that in the instrumental, the final -й may optionally be replaced by -ю, especially in poetry or in old-fashioned style

Pronouns

Personal pronouns

Russian is subject to the T–V distinction. The respectful form of the singular you is the same as the plural form. It begins with a capital letter: Вы, Вас, Вам, etc., in the following situations: personal letters and official papers, and questionnaires ; otherwise it begins with minuscule. Compare the distinction between du and Sie in German or tu and vous in French.
When a preposition is used directly before a third-person pronoun, it is prefixed with н-: у него, с неё, etc. Because the prepositional case always occurs after a preposition, the third person prepositional always starts with an н-.
There are special cases for prepositions before first person singular pronouns: со мной – "with me", ко мне – "to me", во мне – "in me", обо мне – "about me". All of these preposition forms are unstressed.
Like adjectives and numerals, letter "г" in masculine and neuter 3rd person genitive and accusative forms is pronounced as "в" : его – ево.
English "it" can be translated as both оно́ and э́то. The latter is used as a stub pronoun for a subject: э́то хорошо́ – "it/this is good", кто́ это? – "who is it/this?".

Demonstrative pronouns

If the preposition "about" is used, for proximal demonstrative pronouns it is об: об э́том – about this.

Possessive adjectives and pronouns

Unlike English, Russian uses the same form for a possessive adjective and the corresponding possessive pronoun. In Russian grammar they are called possessive pronouns притяжательные местоимения. The following rules apply:

Possessive pronouns agree with the noun of the possessed in case, gender, and number.
The reflexive pronoun свой is used when the possessor is the subject of the clause, whatever the person, gender, and number of that subject.
No non-reflexive exists for the third person: the genitive of the personal pronoun is instead, i.e. его for a masculine/neuter singular possessor, её for a feminine singular possessor and их for a plural possessor. But unlike other genitives used with a possessive meaning, in modern Russian these words are usually placed before the object of possession.
Example of the difference between reflexive and non-reflexive pronouns:
* "Он лю́бит свою́ жену́ = He loves his wife" while "Он лю́бит его́ жену́ = He loves his wife".
Unlike Latin where a similar rule applies for the third person only, Russian accepts using reflexives for all persons:
* "Я люблю́ жену́ = I love my wife"
* "Я люблю́ себя́ = I love myself"

The ending -его is pronounced as -ево́.

Interrogative pronouns

These interrogatives are used by scholars to denote "usual" questions for correspondent grammatical cases : Ма́ша лю́бит Ва́сю – Masha loves Vasya .
The ending "-его" is pronounced as "-ево".

Numerals

Russian has several classes of numerals : cardinal, ordinal, collective, and also fractional constructions; also it has other types of words, relative to numbers: collective adverbial forms, multiplicative and counting-system adjectives, some numeric-pronominal and indefinite quantity words. Here are the numerals from 0 to 10:

	cardinal numbers	ordinal numbers	collective numbers
0	ноль or нуль	нулево́й	—
1	оди́н, одна́, одно́, одни́	пе́рвый	—
2	два, две	второ́й	дво́е
3	три	тре́тий	тро́е
4	четы́ре	четвёртый	че́тверо
5	пять	пя́тый	пя́теро
6	шесть	шесто́й	ше́стеро
7	семь	седьмо́й	се́меро
8	во́семь	восьмо́й
9	де́вять	девя́тый
10	де́сять	деся́тый

Verbs

is subject to three persons in two numbers and two simple tenses, with periphrastic forms for the future and subjunctive, as well as imperative forms and present/past participles, distinguished by adjectival and adverbial usage. Verbs and participles can be reflexive, i.e. have reflexive suffix -ся/-сь appended after ending.
The past tense is made to agree in gender with the subject, for it is the participle in an originally periphrastic perfect formed with the present tense of the verb "to be" быть, which is now omitted except for rare archaic effect, usually in set phrases. The participle nature of past-tense forms is exposed also in that they often have an extra suffix vowel, which is absent in present/future; the same vowel appears in infinitive form, which is considered by few scholars not to be verbal, but in which verbs appear in most dictionaries: ходить "to walk" – ходил " walked" – хожу "I walk".
Verbal inflection is considerably simpler than in Old Russian. The ancient aorist, imperfect, and pluperfect have been lost, though the aorist sporadically occurs in secular literature as late as the second half of the eighteenth century, and survives as an odd form in direct narration, recategorized as a usage of the imperative. The loss of three of the former six tenses has been offset by the development, as in other Slavic languages, of verbal aspect. Most verbs come in pairs, one with imperfective or continuous, the other with perfective or completed aspect, usually formed with a prefix, but occasionally using a different root. E.g., спать is imperfective; поспать is perfective.
The present tense of the verb быть is today normally used only in the third-person singular form, есть, which is often used for all the persons and numbers. As late as the nineteenth century, the full conjugation, which today is extremely archaic, was somewhat more natural: forms occur in the Synodal Bible, in Dostoevsky and in the bylinas or oral folk-epics, which were transcribed at that time. The paradigm shows as well as anything else the Indo-European affinity of Russian:

English	Archaic Russian	Latin	Ancient Greek	Sanskrit	Gothic
"I am"		sum	εἰμί	अस्मि	??
"you are"		es	εἶ	असि	??
"he, she, it is"	есть	est	ἐστί	अस्ति	???
"we are"		sumus	ἐσμέν	स्मः	?????
"you are"		estis	ἐστέ	स्थ	?????
"they are"		sunt	εἰσί	सन्ति	????

Infinitive

The infinitive is the basic form of a verb for most purposes of study. In Russian it has the suffix -ть/-ти, or ends with -чь. For reflexive verbs -ся/-сь suffix is added in the end. Note that due to phonological effects, both -ться and -тся endings are pronounced as or and often cause misspellings even among native speakers.

Present-future tense

Future tense has two forms: simple and compound.

Future simple forms are formed by perfective verbs with the help of personal endings: "She will read" — "Она́ прочита́ет/прочтёт"; "She will do some reading" — "Она́ почита́ет".
Future compound forms are formed by imperfective verbs: a future simple tense form of the verb "быть" and the infinitive of an imperfective verb. The Russian compound future tense is similar in structure to the English future progressive tense and is used to indicate that something will be in progress at a particular moment in the future: She will be reading — "Она́ бу́дет чита́ть", without any assurance that an action will be completed, as opposed to using a perfective verb to refer to an action that is expected to be completed in the future: "Она́ прочтёт" — "She will read / She will have read".

	First conjugation	Second conjugation
1st singular	-у or -ю	-у or -ю
2nd singular	-ешь	-ишь
3rd singular	-ет	-ит
1st plural	-ем	-им
2nd plural	-ете	-ите
3rd plural	-ут or -ют	-ат or -ят

-у/-ут,-ат is used after a hard consonant or ж, ш, щ or ч; otherwise -ю/-ют,-ят is used.
A mutating final consonant may entail a change in the ending.
е becomes ё when stressed.

Two forms are used to conjugate the present tense of imperfective verbs and the future tense of perfective verbs.
The first conjugation is used in verb stems ending in:

a consonant,
-у,-ы or -о,-я
-е
Бить, пить, жить, шить, лить, вить, гнить, брить, стелить, зиждить.
-а not preceded by a hush :

The second conjugation involves verb stems ending in:

-и or -е
-а preceded by a hush :
Стоять, бояться

Example: попро-с-ить – попро-ш-у, попро-с-ят .

Examples

рисова́ть	плева́ть	танцева́ть
я рису́ю	я плюю́	я танцу́ю
ты рису́ешь	ты плюёшь	ты танцу́ешь
он/она́/оно́ рису́ет	он/она́/оно́ плюёт	он/она́/оно́ танцу́ет
мы рису́ем	мы плюём	мы танцу́ем
вы рису́ете	вы плюёте	вы танцу́ете
они́ рису́ют	они́ плюю́т	они́ танцу́ют

There are five irregular verbs:

бежа́ть, бре́зжить – first conjugation in the plural third person, second in other forms;
хоте́ть – first conjugation in the singular, second in plural;
дать – дам, дашь, даст, дади́м, дади́те, даду́т;
есть – ем, ешь, ест, еди́м, еди́те, едя́т.

Past tense

The Russian past tense is gender specific: –л for masculine singular subjects, –ла for feminine singular subjects, –ло for neuter singular subjects, and –ли for plural subjects. This gender specificity applies to all persons; thus, to say "I slept", a male speaker would say я спал, while a female speaker would say я спала́.

Exceptions

infinitive	present stem	past
мочь	мог-/мож-	мог, могла́, могло́, могли́
печь	пек-/печ-	пёк, пекла́, пекло́, пекли́

infinitive	past
умере́ть	у́мер, умерла́, у́мерло, у́мерли

infinitive	past
идти́	шёл, шла, шло, шли
уйти́	ушёл, ушла́, ушло́, ушли́
найти́	нашёл, нашла́, нашло́, нашли́
пройти́	прошёл, прошла́, прошло́, прошли́
прийти́	пришёл, пришла́, пришло́, пришли́
вы́йти	вы́шел, вы́шла, вы́шло, вы́шли

infinitive	past
есть	ел, е́ла, е́ло, е́ли

Moods

Russian verbs can form three moods : indicative, conditional and imperative.

Imperative mood

The imperative mood second-person singular is formed from the future-present base of most verbs by adding -и, -ь or -й. The plural second-person form is made by adding -те to the singular one: говорю 'I speak' – говори – говорите, забуду 'I shall forget' – забудь – забудьте, клею 'I glue' – клей – клейте. Some perfective verbs have a first-person plural imperative form with -те added to a similar simple future or present tense form: пойдёмте 'let us go'. Other forms can express commands in Russian; for third person, for example, the particle пусть with future can be used: Пусть они замолчат! 'Let them shut up!'.

Conditional mood

The conditional mood in Russian is formed by adding the particle бы after the word which marks the supposed subject into a sentence formed like in the past tense. Thus, to say "I would sleep" or "I would like to sleep", a male speaker would say я спал бы, while a female speaker would say я спала́ бы.

Verbs of motion

Verbs of motion are a distinct class of verbs found in several Slavic languages. Due to the extensive semantic information they contain, Russian verbs of motion pose difficulties for non-native learners at all levels of study. Unprefixed verbs of motion, which are all imperfective, divide into pairs based on the direction of the movement. As opposed to a verb-framed language, in which path is encoded in the verb, but manner of motion typically is expressed with complements, Russian is a satellite language, meaning that these concepts are encoded in both the root of the verb and the particles associated with it, satellites. Thus, the roots of motion verbs convey the lexical information of manner of movement, e.g. walking, crawling, running, whereas prefixes denote path, e.g. motion in and out of space. The roots also distinguish between means of conveyance, e.g. by transport or by one's own power, and in transitive verbs, the object or person being transported. The information below provides an outline of the formation and basic usage of unprefixed and prefixed verbs of motion.

Unprefixed

English	unidirectional	multidirectional
to run	бежа́ть	бе́гать
to wander	брести́	броди́ть
to convey, transport	везти́	вози́ть
to lead	вести́	води́ть
to drive, chase	гна́ть	гоня́ть
to go by vehicle, ride	е́хать	е́здить
to go, walk	идти́	ходи́ть
to roll	кати́ть	ката́ть
to climb	ле́зть	ла́зить
to fly	лете́ть	лета́ть
to carry	нести́	носи́ть
to swim, float	плы́ть	пла́вать
to crawl	ползти́	по́лзать
to drag	тащи́ть	таска́ть

Directionality

Unidirectional verbs describe motion in progress in one direction, e.g.:

We are headed to the library.

Мы идём в библиотеку.

I was on my way to work.

Я шла на работу.

The birds are flying south.

Птицы летят на юг.
Multidirectional verbs describe:

General motion, referring to ability or habitual motion, without reference to direction or destination, e.g.:
* The child has been walking for six months.

Ребёнок ходит шесть месяцев.

* Birds fly, fish swim, and dogs walk.

Птицы летают, рыбы плавают, а собаки ходят.

Movement in various directions, e.g.:
* We walked around the city all day.

Мы ходили по городу весь день.

Repetition of completed trips, e.g.:
* She goes to the supermarket every week.

Она ходит в супермаркет каждую неделю.

In the past tense, a single completed round trip, e.g.:
* I went to Russia last year.

В прошлом году я ездил в Россию.

Unidirectional perfectives with по-

The addition of the prefix по- to a unidirectional verb of motion makes the verb perfective, denoting the beginning of a movement, i.e. 'setting out'. These perfectives imply that the agent has not yet returned at the moment of speech, e.g.,

Going versus taking

Three pairs of motion verbs generally refer to 'taking', 'leading' with additional lexical information on manner of motion and object of transport encoded in the verb stem. These are нести/носить, вести/водить, and везти/возить. See below for the specific information on manner and object of transport:

Prefixed motion verbs

Motion verbs combine with prefixes to form new aspectual pairs, which lose the distinction of directionality, but gain spatial or temporal meanings. The unidirectional verb serves as the base for the perfective, and the multidirectional as the base for the imperfective. In addition to the meanings conveyed by the prefix and the simplex motion verb, prepositional phrases also contribute to the expression of path in Russian. Thus, it is important to consider the whole verb phrase when examining verbs of motion.
In some verbs of motion, adding a prefix requires a different stem shape:
See below for a table the prefixes, their primary meanings, and the prepositions that accompany them, adapted from Muravyova. Several examples are taken directly or modified from Muravyova.

Idiomatic uses

The uni- and multidirectional distinction rarely figures into the metaphorical and idiomatic use of motion verbs, because such phrases typically call for one or the other verb. See below for examples:

Adjectival participle

Russian adjectival participles can be active or passive; have perfective or imperfective aspect; imperfective participles can have present or past tense, while perfective ones in classical language can be only past. As adjectives, they are declined by case, number and gender. If adjectival participles are derived from reciprocal verbs, they have suffix -ся appended after the adjectival ending; this suffix in participles never takes the short form. Participles are often difficult to distinguish from deverbal adjectives.

Active present participle

Лю́ди, живу́щие в э́том го́роде, о́чень до́брые и отве́тственные – The people living in this city are very kind and responsible.
In order to form the active present participle, the "т" of the 3rd person plural of the present tense is replaced by "щ", and a necessary adjective ending is added:

де́лать ' – де́лают''' – де́лающий

Note: Only imperfective verbs can have an active present participle.
Note: These forms are obsolete in modern Russian and they are not used in the spoken language as forms of the verb 'to be'.

Reflexive verbs paradigm

The participle agrees in gender, case and number with the word it refers to:

Active past participle

The active past participle is used in order to indicate actions that happened in the past:
Compare:
In order to form the active past participle, the infinitive ending '-ть' is replaced by the suffix '-вш-' and add an adjective ending:

infinitive	active past participle
име́ть '	име́вший
рисова́ть '	рисова́вший
тону́ть '	тону́вший
люби́ть '	люби́вший
писа́ть '	писа́вший
коло́ть '	коло́вший
бить '	би́вший
мыть '	мы́вший
дава́ть '	дава́вший
жать '	жа́вший
стать '	ста́вший
жить '	жи́вший

Reflexive verbs paradigm

Passive present participle

In order to form the passive present participle it is necessary to add an adjective ending to the 1st person plural of the present tense:

masculine form	оставля́емый
feminine form	оставля́емая
neuter form	оставля́емое
plural form	оставля́емые

infinitive	1st person plural	passive present participle
поздравля́ть '	поздравля́ем	поздравля́емый
рисова́ть '	рису́ем	рису́емый
люби́ть '	лю́бим	люби́мый
гнать '	го́ним	гони́мый
мыть	мо́ем	мо́емый

Passive participles are occasional in modern Russian. Often, same meaning is conveyed by reflexive active present participles:
The forms ending in -омый are mostly obsolete. Only the forms ведо́мый and иско́мый are used in the spoken language as adjectives:

Passive past participle

Passive past participles are formed by means of the suffixes '-нн-' or '-т-' from the infinitive stem of perfective verbs. Besides that, this kind of participle can have short forms formed by means of the suffixes '-н-' or '-т-':

написа́ть ' – напи́санный / напи́сан'''

	full form	short form
masculine	напи́санный	напи́сан
feminine	напи́санная	напи́сана
neuter	напи́санное	напи́сано
plural	напи́санные	напи́саны

	full form	short form
masculine	уби́тый	уби́т
feminine	уби́тая	уби́та
neuter	уби́тое	уби́то
plural	уби́тые	уби́ты

Adverbial participle

Adverbial participles express an earlier or simultaneous action providing context for the sentence in which they occur, similar to the English constructions "having done X" or "while doing Y".
Like normal adverbs, adverbial participles are not declined. They inherit the aspect of their verb; imperfective ones are usually present, while perfective ones can only be past. Adverbial participles are usually active, but passive constructions may be formed using adverbial participle forms of the verb быть ; these may be combined with either an adjectival participle in the instrumental case, or a short adjective in the nominative.
Present adverbial participles are formed by adding the suffix -а/-я to the stem of the present tense. A few past adverbial participles are formed in the same way, but most are formed with the suffix -в, some whose stem ends with a consonant, with -ши. For reflexive verbs, the suffix -сь remains at the very end of the word; in poetry it can take the form -ся.
In standard Russian, adverbial participles are considered a feature of bookish speech; in colloquial language they are usually replaced with single adjectival participles or constructions with verbs: Пообедав, я пошёл гулять → Я пообедал и пошёл гулять. But in some conservative dialects, adverbial and adjectival participles may be used to produce perfect forms, which do not occur in standard Russian; e.g. "I haven't eaten today" will be "Я сегодня не евши" instead of "Я сегодня не ел".

Word formation

Russian has on hand a set of prefixes, prepositional and adverbial in nature, as well as diminutive, augmentative, and frequentative suffixes. All of these can be stacked one upon the other to produce multiple derivatives of a given word. Participles and other inflectional forms may also have a special connotation. For example:

мысль		"thought"
мысли́шка		"a petty, cute or a silly thought; thoughtlet"
мысли́ща		"a thought of fundamental import"
мышле́ние		"thought, abstract thinking, reasoning"
мы́слить		"to think "
мы́слящий		"thinking, intellectual"
мы́слимый		"conceivable, thinkable"
мы́сленно		"mentally, in a mental manner"
смысл		"meaning"
осмы́слить		"to comprehend, to conceive; to grasp"
осмы́сливать		"to be in the process of comprehending"
переосмы́слить		"to reassess, to reconsider"
переосмы́сливать		"to be in the process of reassessing "
переосмы́сливаемые		" in the process of being reconsidered"
бессмы́слица		"nonsense"
обессмы́слить		"to render meaningless"
бессмы́сленный		"meaningless"
обессмы́сленный		"rendered meaningless"
необессмы́сленный		"not rendered meaningless"

Russian has also proven friendly to long compounds. As an extreme case:

металлоло̀мообеспече́ние		"provision of scrap metal"
металлоло̀мообеспе́ченный		"well supplied with scrap metal"

Purists frown on such words. Some linguists have suggested that Russian compounding stems from Church Slavonic. In the twentieth century, abbreviated components frequently appeared in compounds:

управдом

= управляющий домом

"residence manager"

Syntax

Basic word order, both in conversation and written language, is subject–verb–object. However, because grammatical relationships are marked by inflection, considerable latitude in word order is allowed, and all possible permutations can be used. For example, the words in the phrase "я пошёл в магазин" can be arranged:

Я пошёл в магазин.
Я в магазин пошёл.
Пошёл я в магазин.
Пошёл в магазин я.
В магазин я пошёл.
В магазин пошёл я.

while maintaining grammatical correctness. Note, however, that the order of the phrase "в магазин" is kept constant.
Word order can express logical stress, and degree of definiteness. The primary emphasis tends to be initial, with a weaker emphasis at the end. Some of these arrangements can describe present actions, not only past.
In some cases, alternative word order can change the meaning entirely:

Не надо меня уговаривать.
Меня не надо уговаривать.

Impersonal sentences

Russian is a null-subject language – it allows constructing sentences without subject. Some of them are claimed to not be impersonal, but to have oblique subject. One possible classification of such sentences distinguishes:
; Subjectless impersonals contain an impersonal verb, and no other word is used as a subject:Смеркалось. ' dusky.'
; Dative impersonals usually express personal feelings, where experiencer in dative case can possibly be considered as subject:Мне скучно. 'I'm bored.'
; Other impersonals have an element which is neither nominative nor dative, but still is a nominal verb argument:Меня тошнит. 'I feel sick.'

Negation

Multiple Negatives

Unlike in standard English, multiple negatives are compulsory in Russian, as in "никто никогда никому ничего не прощает" . Usually, only one word in a sentence has negative particle or prefix "не" or belongs to negative word "нет", while another word has negation-affirmative particle or prefix "ни"; but this word can often be omitted, and thus ни becomes the signal of negation: вокруг никого нет and вокруг никого both mean "there is nobody around".

Adverbial answers

As a one-word answer to an affirmative sentence, yes translates да and no translates нет, as shown by the table below.

	English	Russian
First speaker	It's raining	Идёт дождь
Agreeing with speaker	Yes = it's raining	Да = идёт дождь
Disagreeing with speaker	No = it's not raining	Нет = дождь не идёт

No simple rule supplies an adverbial answer to a negative sentence. B. Comrie says that in Russian answer да or нет is determined not so much by the negative form of the question as by the questioner's intent for using negation, or whether the response is in agreement with his presupposition. In many cases that means that the adverbial answer should be extended for avoiding ambiguity; in spoken language, intonation in saying нет can also be significant to if it is affirmation of negation or negation of negation.

Question	Interpretation	Positive answer what was negated is declared	Negative answer what was negated is refused
Не желаете ли печенья? Would you like to have some cookies?	Negation is used only for more politeness	Да, пожалуйста. Yes, please.	Нет, спасибо. No, thank you.
Не задумывались ли вы над этим? Haven't you considered this?	Presence of a negative particle is conditioned by the expectation of a positive answer	Да, задумывался. Yes, I have.	Нет, не задумывался. No, I haven't.
Так что, не ку́пите? So, you won't buy ?	Negation is forced by the presumption of negative answer	Нет, берём. No, we will buy it.	Да, не берём. / Нет, не берём. No, we won't buy it.
Ты ведь не сердишься на меня? you are not angry with me, ?	Negation is hoped for, rather than expected	Нет, я сержусь. / Да, сержусь. Yes, I am angry.	Нет, не сержусь. / Да, не сержусь. No, I am not angry.

Note that while expressing an affirmation of negation by extending "да" with a negated verb is grammatically acceptable. In practice it is more common to answer "нет" and subsequently extend with a negated verb paralleling the usage in English. Answering a negative sentence with a non-extended "нет" is usually interpreted as an affirmation of negation again in a way similar to English.
Alternatively, both positive and negative simple questions can be answered by repeating the predicate with or without не, especially if да/нет is ambiguous: in the latest example, "сержусь" or "не сержусь".

Coordination

The most common types of coordination expressed by compound sentences in Russian are conjoining, oppositional, and separative. Additionally, the Russian grammar considers comparative, complemental, and clarifying. Other flavors of meaning may also be distinguished.
Conjoining coordinations are formed with the help of the conjunctions и "and", ни … ни, та́кже "also", то́же, etc. Most commonly the conjoining coordination expresses enumeration, simultaneity or immediate sequence. They may also have a cause-effect flavor.
Oppositional coordinations are formed with the help of the oppositional conjunctions: а "and"~"but", но "but", одна́ко "however", зато́ "on the other hand", же "and"~"but", etc. They express the semantic relations of opposition, comparison, incompatibility, restriction, or compensation.
Separative coordinations are formed with the help of the separative conjunctions: и́ли "or", ли́бо "either", ли … ли "whether … or", то … то "then … then", etc. They express alternation or incompatibility of things expressed in the coordinated sentences.
Complemental and clarifying coordination expresses additional, but not subordinated, information related to the first sentence.
Comparative coordination is a semantic flavor of the oppositional one.
Common coordinating conjunctions include:

и "and", enumerative, complemental;
а "and", comparative, tending to "but" or "while";
но "but", oppositional.

The distinction between "и" and "а" is important:

"и" implies a following complemental state that does not oppose the antecedent;
"а" implies a following state that acts in opposition to the antecedent, but more weakly than "но".

они́ уе́хали, и мы уезжа́ем		they have left, and we are leaving
они́ уже́ уе́хали, а мы ещё нет		they have already left, while we haven't yet
они уе́хали, но ненадо́лго		they have left, but not for long

The distinction between "и" and "а" developed after medieval times. Originally, "и" and "а" were closer in meaning. The unpunctuated ending of the Song of Igor illustrates the potential confusion. The final five words in modern spelling, "князьям слава а дружине аминь" can be understood either as "Glory to the princes and to their retinue! Amen." or "Glory to the princes, and amen to their retinue". Although the majority opinion is definitely with the first interpretation, no consensus has formed. The psychological difference between the two is quite obvious.

Subordination

s include:

если 'if' ;
потому что 'because'
так как 'since'
чтобы, дабы 'so that'
после того, как 'after'
хотя 'although'

In general, Russian has fewer subordinate clauses than English, because the participles and adverbial participles often take the place of a relative pronoun/verb combination. For example:

Вот человек, потерявший надежду.		Here a man who has lost hope.
Гуляя по городу, всегда останавливаюсь у Ростральных колонн.		When I go for a walk in the city, I always pause by the Rostral Columns.

Absolute construction

Despite the inflectional nature of Russian, there is no equivalent in modern Russian to the English nominative absolute or the Latin ablative absolute construction. The old language had an absolute construction, with the noun in the dative. Like so many other archaisms, it is retained in Church Slavonic. Among the last known examples in literary Russian occurs in Radishchev's Journey from Petersburg to Moscow, 1790: