Adjective endings
- In Russian we use adjectives to describe nouns. Adjectives, like
nouns, have gender and number. They also agree in gender, number
and case with the noun they modify. Refer to the individual cases in Russian to
see the adjective endings for each case.
- Before you attempt to learn the endings for adjectives, you should
be quite familiar with the Russian spelling rules.
- The ending an adjective takes will depend on the type of final
consonant in its stem. Review Hard and soft stems.
- Adjectives answer the question какой? (what kind?), which itself is an adjective and it takes adjective endings that match the noun that it asks about: какой (m.), какая (f.), какое (n.), какие (pl.).
- In the masculine form, the adjective ending will also
depend on whether the accent is on the stem or on the ending:
gender | example | ending | reason |
masculine |
новый | -ый | hard stem |
хороший | -ий | spelling rule 1 |
большой | -ой | accented ending |
синий | -ий | soft stem |
feminine |
новая | -ая | hard stem |
хорошая |
большая |
синяя | -яя | soft stem |
neuter |
новое | -ое | hard stem |
хорошее | -ее | spelling rule 3 |
большое | -ое | accented ending |
синее | -ее | soft stem |
plural |
новые | -ые | hard stem |
хорошие | -ие | spelling rule 3 |
большие |
синие | -ие | soft stem |