Study Russian Online

Plural forms of Russian nouns
(Nominative Plural)

Russian grammar -->Plural forms

In Russian, nouns distinguish singular and plural number. In general, plural froms of nouns are made by adding or changing the ending of the word. It should be noted that the grammatical number of nouns is a very complex question which is closely related to cases of nouns.

Moreover, there are a lot of particuliarities concerning plural forms of Russian which may require quite a lot of time and practice. So, to get started we are going to consider the most frequent rules to form the nominative plural so that you could get the general idea about the grammatical number in Russian.

Basic rules to form the Nominative Plural

Masculine nouns

1. Nouns ending in a consonant (hard stem nouns) (except -ж, -ч, -щ, -ш, and -к, -х, -г) add the ending -ы.

2. Nouns ending in -ь and -й (soft stem nouns) change -ь and -й to -и:

3. Nouns -ж, -ч, -щ, -ш, and -к, -х, -г add the ending -и:

Feminine nouns

1. Nouns ending in -а (except -жа, -чa, -ща, -ша, and -ка, -ха, -га) change -а to -ы:

2. Nouns ending in -я and in -ь, change -я and -ь, to -и:

3. Nouns ending in -жа, -чa, -ща, -ша, and -ка, -ха, -га, change -а to -и:

Neuter nouns

1. Nouns ending in -o change ending to -а:

2. Nouns ending in -е change ending to -я:

Particular cases

There a lot of nouns with plural form that does not conform to above-mentioned rules. Below, we provide a few (most frequent) examples of such nouns:

1. A small number of Russian masculine nouns add the stressed ending -a/-я (instead of -ы/-и):

2. Several masculine nouns have the ending -ья in plural, with stem changes in some of them:

3. Several neuter nouns form the nominative plural with -ья:

4. Some neuter nouns form the nominative plural with the ending -и. These are nouns колено, плечо, ухо, and nouns ending in -ко in nominative singular.

5. Neuter nouns ending in -мя change the final -я to -ена:

6. Feminine nouns дочь and мать have stem changes in plural:

See also

-Russian Cases
-Russian Nouns Declension
-Grammar exercises: Russian nouns number