44 Unit 3: В гости ́ нице
Accusative case
In a Russian sentence, the direct object of the verb goes into the accusa-
tive case. This is often identical with the nominative case. For example,
neuter nouns, inanimate masculine nouns and feminine nouns end-
ing in -ь do not change their endings in the accusative: у�тро – у�тро;
зда�ние – зда�ние; авто�бус – авто�бус; пло�щaдь – пло�щадь. Fem-
inine nouns ending in -a change that ending in the accusative singular
to -y. Those ending in -я change the ending to -ю:
доро�га – доро�гу; фaми�лия – фaми�лию. Он зна�ет доро�гу
Не knows the way.Accusative case after prepositions
The accusative case is used after the prepositions в ‘to, into’; нa ‘to,
on to’:
Я иду� в бyфе�т Он идёт нa рабо�тy
‘I am going to the snack bar’. ‘He goes to work’.
Note the difference in use between в followed by the accusative, as
here, and в followed by the prepositional case, as explained in Unit 1:
Oн в бyфе�те ‘He is in the snack bar’; Он идёт в буфе�т ‘He is going
to the snack bar’. In the first example, в is translated ‘in’ or ‘inside’ and
indicates location, and in the second, it is translated as ‘to’ or ‘into’ and
indicates motion. Similarly, the preposition на is used with either the
prepositional or the accusative case, depending on whether you want
to convey the idea of location or motion:
Он на рабо�те Он идёт на рабо�ту
‘He is at work’. ‘He is going to work’.
Generally на is used to translate ‘to’ or ‘at’ before a noun indicating an
activity or event and в before nouns indicating buildings or parts of
buildings. There are some exceptions to this general rule:
Он идёт на по�чту Он на по�чте
‘He is going to the post office.’ ‘He is at the post office’.Упражне�ние 5
Answer the questions using the words in brackets.