My Slavic Studies

Мне нравится острая еда.
I like spicy food.
Это полная правда.
It’s the full truth.
У него есть быстрая машина.
He has a fast car.
Нас пугают злые политики.
Evil politicians scare us.
У нас летом бывают жаркие дни.
We get hot days in the summer.

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Purpose

Adjectives, known in Russian as прилагательные, serve to describe nouns [person, place, thing]. They must agree in gender and number.

Yes! They also decline! But we won’t talk about declension in this post! We’re just focusing on agreement here.

Adjectives in Russian often answer the question какой? [what kind of?] We’ll learn more about this word later in another lesson.

To learn about noun gender for masculine, feminine and neuter, click on the links.

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Formation

When adjectives are listed in textbooks, dictionaries, etc. they are always listed in the masculine singular. This is the base form for adjectives.

Thus, if you look up warm [temperature], you’ll find тёплый. The ending –ый is the most common base form ending you’ll encounter. If we remove it, we’re left with тёпл-.

You’ll also encounter the endings –ой and –ий. We’ll learn them in later sections of this lesson.

How to proceed? Look at the table below and you’ll see which endings to add for the appropriate gender or number.

Depending on a noun’s gender or number, the following endings are possible.

masculine	feminine	neuter	plural
–ый	–ая	–ое	–ые

As you see from the table below, day in Russian is masculine, therefore we use the masculine ending. Water is feminine, hence the feminine ending, and so on…

тёплый день [warm day]

тёплая вода [warm water]

тёплое море [warm sea]

тёплые дни [warm days]

Some in-context examples:

В конце весны у нас бывают тёплые дни. At the end of spring, we get [some] warm days. Тёплая вода помогает телу расслабляться. Warm water helps the body relax.

If you found that to be a little too advanced, let’s look at more adjectives in context. And used more simply.

–	with adjective
Это компьютер. This is a computer.	Это мощный компьютер. This is a powerful computer.
Это тетрадь. This is a notebook.	Это красивая тердадь. This is a beautiful notebook.
Вот письмо. Here is a letter.	Вот длинное письмо. Here is a long letter.
Вот журналы. Here are magazines.	Вот интересные журналы. Here are interesting magazines.

Here is long list of commonly used adjectives following the patterns above:

быстрый	fast
щедрый	generous
интересный	interesting
прекрасный	wonderful
весёлый	merry
приятный	pleasant
холодный	cold
тёмный	dark
светлый	light
мощный	powerful
старый	old
круглый	round
нормальный	normal
сложный	complex
тяжёлый	heavy
серьёзный	serious
заботливый	caring
красивый	beautiful
нежный	tender
длинный	long
чистый	clean
грязный	dirty
новый	new
медленный	slow
мокрый	wet
вежливый	polite
скучный	boring
забавный	fun
белый	white
чёрный	black
красный	red
зелёный	green
фиолетовый	purple
серый	grey
жёлтый	yellow
оранжевый	orange
розовый	pink
коричневый	brown
свободный	free
дешёвый	cheap
сильный	strong
слабый	weak
богатый	rich
бедный	poor
умный	smart
удобный	comfortable
добрый	kind
красивый	beautiful, good-looking
острый	sharp; spicy; wise
пресный	bland
вкусный	tasty, delicious
твёрдый	hard
снежный	snowy
правый	right
левый	left
полный	full

As you can probably tell from the list, these adjectives constitute the largest group in Russian.

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Stress Adjectives [stressed on the ending]

Crystal clear? Okay then, let’s move on to what I refer to as stress adjectives. These are adjectives whose stress is on the ending. And these all end in –ой.

Let’s take an example. If you look up simple [easy] in the dictionary, you’ll find простой.

As we did above, we remove the ending, we’re left with прост-, then we add on the proper endings.

Depending on a noun’s gender or number, the following endings are possible.

masculine	feminine	neuter	plural
–ой	–ая	–ое	–ые

Stress, unlike with verbs, doesn’t move around when we change adjectival endings. It remains wherever it was in the base form.

Text in Russian is masculine; therefore, we use the masculine ending. Book is feminine; therefore, we use the feminine ending, and so on…

простой текст [simple text]

простая книга [simple book]

простое объяснение [simple explanation]

простые песни [simple songs]

Some in-context examples:

Вот очень простой текст на русском языке. Here’s a very simple text in Russian. Простые песни полезны для изучения грамматики. Simple songs are useful for learning grammar.

If you found that to be a little too advanced, let’s look at more adjectives in context. And used more simply.

–	with adjective
Это текст. This is a text.	Это простой текст. This is a simple text.
Это грамматика. This is grammar.	Это простая грамматика. This is simple grammar.
Вот объяснение. Here is an explanation.	Вот простое объяснение. Here is a simple explanation.
Вот песни. Here are songs.	Вот простые песни. Here are simple songs.

Additional such adjectives include:

большой*	big, large
пустой	empty
плохой*	bad
злой	evil; mean
сухой*	dry
молодой	young
скупой	stingy
крутой	steep; cool
голубой	light blue
дорогой*	expensive; dear
золотой	gold
смешной	funny
прямой	straight
чужой*	someone else’s
дурной	nasty

Adjectives marked with astricts do fall in this category, however, please watch out for the plural. It’s affected by the spelling rules. For example, большой – m. большой, f. большая, n. большое, pl. большие.

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Other Adjectives [affected by spelling rules]

Last but not least, we need to make ourselves aware of the spelling rules in Russian for these adjectives to make sense.

Adjectives like хороший [good] are affected by one of these rules.

Never write ы after the letters к, г, х [velars] and ч, ж, ш, щ [hushers]. Instead, write и.

Depending on a noun’s gender or number, the following endings are possible.

masculine	feminine	neuter	plural
–ий	–ая	–ее	–ие

Adjectives like хороший don’t qualify as stress adjectives, because the stress is not on the ending. They are the way they are because of the spelling rules.

Day in Russian is masculine; therefore, we use the masculine ending. Weather is feminine, hence the feminine ending, and so on…

хороший день [good day]

хорошая погода [good weather]

хорошее описание [good description]

хорошие курсы [good courses]

Some in-context examples:

Хорошая погода приводит нас в отличное настроение. Good weather puts us in a great mood. В университете предлагаются хорошие курсы по математике. Good math courses are offered at the university.

If you found that to be a little too advanced, let’s look at more adjectives in context. And used more simply.

–	with adjective
Это день. This is a day.	Это хороший день. This is a good day.
Это погода. This is weather.	Это хорошая погода. This is good weather.
Вот описание. Here is a description.	Вот хорошее описание. Here is a good description.
Вот курсы. Here are courses.	Вот хорошие курсы. Here are good courses.

Additional such adjectives include:

жаркий	hot
маленький	small
высокий	tall; high
лёгкий	light; easy
короткий	short
мягкий	soft
горький	bitter
сладкий	sweet
тихий	calm
строгий	strict
неуклюжий	clumsy

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And that is all you need to know for NOW concerning nominative adjectives in Russian. Is there more? Definitely! That will be covered at a later time on this blog.