(no subject)

[bellezzarubata.livejournal.com]

I'm unclear as to when I should use certain cases.  This is my current understanding:


Accusative is used when you're talking about something/direct object, such as:

я хочу собаку
я вижу его


Genitive is used when you're talking about ownership, such as:

это его книгы
Is ownership (with special modifiers or more?) also applied to "зовут"? -- Её зовут _____.


And how does Dative apply to age if it's purpose is to explain an indirect object? I'm not making the corellation, sorry.

Comments

[oryx_and_crake]

I am not sure. I think you'll have to memorize most of it. However there should be some laws directing it.
Just off the top of my head:
Nominative - when someone is an actor. (Tjis includes passive voice constructions.)
Мальчик купил книгу. (nominative, accusative)
Мальчик is in nominative because he is the one who acts. Книгу is in accusative because it is an object of an action.
However, if you use the passive voice, the cases get somewhat reversed.
Книга была куплена мальчиком. (Книга is now in nominative, because it is "the main character" of the sentence, and мальчик is in instrumental because... just because.)
Мальчик копает землю лопатой. Here it is easy - мальчик is in nominative because he is the actor, землю is in accusative because it is the subject, and лопата is an instrument therefore it is in instrumental.

Genitive is used, as you said, to signify ownership, but not only for that.
У нас есть хлеб - we have bread, хлеб is in nominative, but for У нас нет хлеба it will be genitive.

Prepositional is normally used with prepositions, like в (in) or о (about):
Мы были в лесу. Мама рассказала о школе.

However the preposition "в" can also be used with other cases, е.g. accusative: ходить в школу.

Hope this helps and sorry I cannot give you more straightforward rules.

[giantantattack.livejournal.com]

Technically, in "в лесу", лес is in the locative case, not prepositional.

Prepositional - Я думаю о лесе.
Locative - Я стою в лесу.

Same for words like снег, мост, порт, etc.

[oryx_and_crake]

They did not teach us about locative case at school, therefore it does not exist.
:-)

[giantantattack.livejournal.com]

Боже мой!

What about the vocative case? ;-)

[oryx_and_crake]

Never!!!