Duo Russian Grammar

52) Being Instrumental

Working and being

Instrumental, while being a relatively niche case, is used for a number of verbs that mean "being" something (or someone) and "being interested" in something. For example, with быть when in the Past or the Future.

«Явля́ться» is a formal verb for "to be" which you must know but you won't necessarily use all that much. One important use would be somewhat formal sentences of the model ''A' is a 'B' that is a 'C'.' Imagine something like this:

  • These days, a school principal is a person who is usually not a teacher ~ В наше время директор школы — человек, который обычно не является учителем.

A somewhat stilted example, but still quite good because it would sound strange here to omit "являться" (to be) in the 2nd half of this sentence. Fortunately, these sorts of definitions are often "A is a B who does C", so you don't have to worry too much.

«Занима́ться» is a verb that has no direct equivalent in English and therefore can be tricky to translate. It has a general meaning of "being occupied with something", which means pursuing some activity (cf. заня́тие "occupation, class", за́нят "busy").

Depending on the nature of the activity it can be any of the following:

  • learning занима́юсь испа́нским
  • hobby: занима́юсь ролевы́ми и́грами
  • work: занима́юсь исто́рией славя́н
  • sports: занима́юсь футбо́лом
  • current activity or occupation: Чем ты занима́ешься ~What are you doing/What do you do?

There is also «увлека́ться» which is more directly connected to hobbies (увлече́ния) which you are "keen on" or "into" e.g. я увлекаюсь иностранными языками.

Instrumental for adjectives

Here is a reference table, as well as some examples (words for white, blue, narrow, big, the best)

masc/neut fem pl
ENDINGS -ым/-им -ой/-ей -ыми/-ими
eg. бе́лый бе́лым бе́лой бе́лыми
eg. си́ний си́ним си́ней си́ними
eg. у́зкий у́зким у́зкой у́зкими
eg. большо́й больши́м большо́й больши́ми
eg. лу́чший лу́чшим лу́чшей лу́чшими
Два́, три́, четы́ре become двумя́, тремя́, четырьмя́

Note how after hushes (ж, ш, щ, ч), ой is used for end-stressed adjectives and ей for stem-stressed ones. That reflects the pronunciation: after a hush, unstressed о/а sound the same as an unstressed и/е would.