Did you know that the forms of Accusative masculine and plural and Accusative feminine plural of animate nouns are identical to Genitive case forms? In the Russian language, animacy is a characteristic of nouns which indicates that the word means a human being or an animal. However, nouns denoting groups of people or animals are inanimate.
There are some more animate nouns:
- words that denote some mythic characters, like кентавр (centaur), дракон (dragon) etc.
- names of playing cards (туз (ace), король (king), дама (queen), валет (jack).
- anthropomorphic creatures or mechanisms (робот (robot), киборг (cyborg).
- words мертвец (dead person), покойник (the deceased), кукла (doll), марионетка ‘marionette’.
- words that can be both inanimate and animate: микроб (microbe), бактерия (bacterium), личинка (larva), куколка (chrysalis).
For example,
Я вижу новую книгу. I see a new book.
Practice Russian with our chat bot!
Free and effective!Я вижу нового студента. I see a new student.
Я беру новые очки. I am taking new glasses.
Я беру родителей с собой. I am taking my parents with me.
Practice Russian with our chat bot!
Free and effective!