Серёжа, какие у тебя хобби?
Seryozha, what are your hobbies?
Они уехали в отпуск в Колорадо.
They went on vacation to Colorado.
The declension system in Russian is key to mastering this wonderful language. However, it’s a pain having to decline nouns constantly.
You’ll make mistakes – that’s a given! Either you forgot the correct case ending, or it turned out to be a noun with an irregular declension you weren’t aware of.
There are, however, nouns in Russian that never decline, which means all you have to do is learn its base form [nominative] and that’s it!
| Indeclinable nouns are usually from different languages – they have been incorporated into the Russian language. Since they aren’t true Russian words, their endings don’t quite suit Russian’s declension system. Hence, they don’t decline. |
Since they don’t decline, these words will remain the same regardless of their function in a sentence. Neither case nor number will have an effect on them, i.e. they won’t change!
I took the liberty of compiling a list of as many indeclinable words that I could think up. While this is far from a complete list, it certainly gives you an idea.
| Indeclinable Nouns |
All the nouns in this list, unless marked otherwise, are neuter.
| пальто | coat |
| кино | movie theater |
| киви | kiwi |
| кафе | café, coffee shop |
| кангуру [м] | kangaroo |
| шимпанзе [м] | chimpanzee |
| бюро | office |
| пианино | piano |
| метро | metro, subway |
| радио | radio |
| ессе | essay |
| шоссе | highway |
| фото | photo(graph) |
| танго | tango |
| пюре | purée |
| суфле | soufflé |
| табу | taboo |
| портмоне | purse |
| адвакадо | avocado |
| каратэ | karate |
| брокколи | broccoli |
| ватерполо | water polo |
| виски | whisky |
| граффити | graffiti |
| интервью | interview |
| казино | casino |
| какао | cocoa |
| каноэ | canoe |
| меню | menu |
| пони | pony |
| резюме | résumé |
| кофе [м] | coffee |
| латте | latte |
| шоу | show |
| капучино | cappuccino |
Let’s look at some example sentences. Do you see that despite their function in a sentence, there is no change? In the first sentence кофе is in genitive case, while in the second фото is in the prepositional.
Despite there being no change, it’s nevertheless important to be aware of which case these indeclinable words are in. The accompanying adjectives, determiners [they decline] still need to decline in the proper case – на этом фото.
| Я выпил 3 чашечки кофе [чего?]. I drank 3 cups of coffee. |
| Что ты видишь на этом фото [где?]? What do you see in this photo? |
Let’s look at one more example so this all makes sense. As you see, пальто is in the genitive case – it doesn’t decline, but the adjectives describing the word do.
| Столько же красивых меховых пальто [чего?]! So many beautiful fur coats! |
What about places? For example, what if you’re from Toronto? Well, in Russian it’s Торонто, and it doesn’t decline. In fact, no city names with funny endings decline.
| Я живу в Сиднее, но родился и вырос в Торонто [где?]. I live in Sydney but was born and raised in Toronto. |
How about another example? Miami in Russian is Майами.
| После выхода на пенсию он планирует переехать в Майами [куда?]. After retiring, he plans to move to Miami. |
I don’t want to overwhelm you with too much information, but let’s tackle one more thing related to places.
| Acronyms don’t decline! |
| Как была жизнь в СССР [где?]? How was life in the USSR? СССР = Союз Советских Социалистических Республик (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) |
| Население США более 300 миллионов [чего?]. The population of the USA is over 300 million. США = Соединённые Штаты Америки (United States of America) |
| Он теперь студент МГУ [чего?]. He’s now an MSU student. МГУ = Московский госудаственный университет (Moscow State University) |
| Следующим летом мы летим в ЮАР [куда?]. Next summer we’re flying to the RSA. ЮАР = Южно-Африканская Республика (Republic of South Africa) |
But…some words of foreign origin, if they have an ending that works well with Russian’s case system, can decline.
| Серфинг – очень популярный спорт в США. Surfing is a very popular in the USA. |
| Я занимаюсь серфингом уже много лет. I’ve been doing surfing for many years. |
But how do tell? Well, it’s pretty easy.
| As a general rule, any word ending in –и, –ю, –у, or –э cannot decline. With –о and –е it’s a case-by-case matter. The words платье [dress], поле [field], кольцо [ring], сердце [heart], молоко [milk] all have one of those two endings, yet they decline. |
There is more to declining nouns of foreign origin, but we’ll cover that in future posts.
With that we’ve reached the end of this post. I hope it proved useful to you and that you learned something new.
| Last Edit: 12/06/2025. |
My Slavic Studies 