Russian Cases

[sunniegreen.livejournal.com]

Hi, I'm an American student learning Russian. The vocabulary, I am slowly accumulating, the pronunciation needs some practice but isn't any real trouble. The things I was scared of aren't so scary. My problem (and the problem of the rest of my class) is with the cases. Our professor, bless her heart, is having trouble explaining them to us clearly. Personally I think that it can be harder in the lower levels to be taught by a native speaker because there is not as much mutual understanding of the problem areas.
We've asked for clarification and parsing sentences but she doesn't seem to have much attention span for explanations because she doesn't seem to understand what we aren't understanding. It always seems to be one step forward, one step back, one step forward, and suddenly you're in China and you're holding a wedge of cheese and you don't know what happened but nothing makes sense anymore.
Anyway this is my long winded way of asking, does anyone have a good general case-usage explanation? Maybe a few sentences showing where cases are in use? I've seen single sentences and phrases, but it is hard to understand the whens and whys without seeing them in action. Maybe a chunk of text with cases pointed out? For anything, I would be eternally grateful. Thanks!

Comments

[ars-longa.livejournal.com]

It always seems to be one step forward, one step back, one step forward, and suddenly you're in China and you're holding a wedge of cheese and you don't know what happened but nothing makes sense anymore.

(snort) My mom says the same about English. (Next step is usually wailing "Я этот язык никогда не выучу!") Anyway, I find it hard to help you without some examples. Can you give us at least a couple of sentences where you think you're completely lost?

[liludalas.livejournal.com]

*sigh*

i believe that as far as learning languages is concerned it's always not "how" it should be"said or done but "why"


every case corresponds with a certain structure in english (usually with a preposition) but if you ask why
"to father" means "к папе" i'm afraid it won't be that simple to explain

[ybelov.livejournal.com]

The first result in Google for "Russian cases" gives a site with what seems to be a good explanation:
http://www.alphadictionary.com/rusgrammar/case.html

[est-lladon.livejournal.com]

It seems to have a lot of inaccuracies...

[grafinok.livejournal.com]

It`s hard to explain everything at once but if you want I can try to help you just in the cinversation with examples :)

[archaicos.livejournal.com]

In this (http://www.amazon.com/Russian-Grammar-Natalia-Lusin/dp/0812049020/) pocket-size grammar reference there's quite a bit of information about the cases. Very well written and at good level of detail.

[ybelov.livejournal.com]

I agree, it's a good book, well worth the price.

[nadyezhda.livejournal.com]

try suggesting the children's classic "doktor aibolit" to your teacher as a way to learn cases. It does a good job of simply using cases in ways your teacher should be able to explain.

[sunniegreen.livejournal.com]

Awesome, thanks! I'll look around for it.

[nadyezhda.livejournal.com]

oooh, also look at "English grammar for students of Russian." It's an excellent resource and explains things nicely.

[scifigal.livejournal.com]

Does this help:

http://www.italki.com/knowledge/wiki-Russian+Grammar+Cases.htm

[eisenheim.livejournal.com]

What textbook are you using?
I used Golosa and it has it's ups and downs. It was good at presenting the cases and their endings in a nice chart format which is easy to just memorize but at explaining the CONCEPT of cases and what each case means? That was another story. I had to suffer through while my teacher tried to explain English grammar so we'd grasp the concept better(it didn't help I didn't know what a preposition was or a direct object ect(nor had I ever learned a foreign language before)). Eventually it got easier after I had the prepositional case under my belt(the second we learned after - of course - nominative.) In my second year once we'd already learned the cases I found a book that had something in it I wish I had seen right after we learned the alphabet. It would would have cut down on a lot of stress:


Nominative: denotes the SUBJECT or agent of an action.

ADAM is going home
FLAMINGOS like the water.
WHO is coming?

Accusative: Denotes the DIRECT OBJECT of an action.(What is "being verbed")

I saw the MOVIE
I hit the BALL
Sam cooked PIZZA

Prepositional: Used with Prepositions, especially to show location(also called "locative case"

I was in BERLIN yesterday
Bella ate at the RESTAURANT.
The paper is on the BOARD.
I heard about the CAT(popular Russian preposition "О" takes this case)

Genitive:(the most complicated): Shows possession (of); used with amounts, numbers.

I heard that it was HAROLD'S book.
Give back JENNA'S pen.
The book of GENISIS.

Dative: Denotes the INDIRECT OBJECT of an action.

I wrote the letter to KRISTY.
She is reading a book to the BOY.
I gave a present to the CHILD.

Instrumental:Indicates the means of completing an action; generally implies "with".

I wrote a letter with a PEN.
I cooked with a POT.
I am going with TERRY


Yesterday I(subject: nominative) was at Jim's(possessor: genitive) cafe(used after a preposition - prepositional) with a friend(instrumental) where I gave money(direct object: accusative) to a charity(indirect object: dative).

And examples in Russian.

Вера читает.
VERA (nominative) is reading.

Вера читает книгу
Vera is reading the BOOK (accusative)

Вера читает книгу в библиотеке о москве.
Vera is reading in the LIBRARY about MOSCOW (prepositional)

Я читаю книгу Веры
I am reading VERA'S(genitive) book(or the book OF VERA)

Вера мне даёт книгу
Vera is giving the book TO ME(dative)

Вера пмшет письмо ручкой.
Vera is writing a letter with a PEN.


I don't know if this is useful to you. You could be at the stage where you know all THIS but need a more in depth explanation of the cases and all they encompass. But if it isn't useful to you maybe someone else who needs this will stumble upon it one day.

[sunniegreen.livejournal.com]

We don't actually have a textbook. Our Prof created a sort of weird packet that she works out of. Lately, though, we've seen a little from Golosa.
Those sentences actually do help some. I just lack context a lot because we will study Dative alone, and genitive alone, and so on. It's just all about needing context. Thanks!

[archaicos.livejournal.com]

Some more links:
http://www.russianresources.info/links.aspx/grammar/nouns