Nominative Case in Russian

The Nominative case in Russian is the initial form of Russian nouns. You’ll find nouns in dictionaries and vocabulary only in the Nominative case form.

Nominative case answers the questions:

“who?” –  Кто?

“what?” – Что?

Nominative case in Russian can be divided into 3 main rules:

1. The Nominative Case Speaks About a Person or Thing Performing an Action or Being in a State

Мама читает  – Mother is reading.

мама = мама (there are no changes in the sentence for the subject “мама” because it indicates the doer of the action.)

2. The Nominative Case Defines the Person or Thing – or – Refers them to a Certain Group of People or Things

Это мама. – This is a mother.

Она мама. – She is a mother.

Вова – студент. – Vova is a student.

3. The Nominative Case Designates the Person or Thing to Which the Action is Directed

Ребёнок накормлен заботливой мамой – The child is nourished by an attentive mother.

Машина не видна – The car is not seen.

Formation of Nominative Case:

Regular endings for singular Nominative case form:

Gender	Singular
Masculine	Ø / -й / -ь
Feminine	-a /-я / -ь
Neutral	-о /-е

To get examples of Formation of Plural Nominative Case check out our “Plural form of Russian Nouns“ article.