Colloquial Russian

(Steven Felgate) #1

42 Unit 3: В гости ́ нице


Spelling rule
In Russian, an unstressed letter o may never follow the letters ж, ч, ш,
щ, ц. It is replaced by e. This spelling rule affects the neuter ending of
some adjectives – see below.

Adjectives
Adjectives like типи�чный are called ‘hard’ adjectives. Another, much
smaller group of adjectives is described as soft. Note the difference in
the endings:

Masculine Feminine Neuter Plural
Hard типи�чный типи�чная типи�чное типи�чные
Soft после�дний после�дняя после�днее после�дние

Some adjectives have a mixture of hard and soft endings resulting from
the influence of the spelling rules and of stress:

Masculine Feminine Neuter Plural
ру�сский ру�сская ру�сское ру�сские
большо�й больша�я большо�е больши�е
како�й кака�я како�е каки�е
хоро�ший хоро�шая хоро�шее хоро�шие

The words ва�нная ‘bathroom’ and дежу�рная ‘concierge’, although
they translate words that are nouns in English, are feminine adjectives
in Russian. Thus their plural forms are ва�нныe and дежу�рные.

Упражне�ние 2


Put the adjectives into the correct form to agree with the nouns.
1 (большо�й) парк, пробле�ма, окно�, столы�.
2 (после�дний) дверь, зда�ние, магaзи�н, но�вости.
3 (уд о�бный) ко�мната, буфе�т, кафе�, ла�мпы.
4 (хоро�ший) ра�дио, гости�ница, ма�стeр, стyде�нты.
5 (истори�ческий) пло�щaдь, метро�, мyзе�й, у�лицы.
6 (попyлярный) хо�бби, журна�л, газе�тa, pecтopа�ны.
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