Duo Russian Grammar

32) Dative and Plurals

The Dative Case in Russian

You have already seen that many expressions of feelings and experience use the Dative: ”Мне нра́вится...”, “Ма́ме хорошо́”, “Ему́ 5 лет”, “Мне ка́жется ...” etc.

The Dative introduces an indirect object of an action: usually the person whom the action is directed towards. An example would be a sentence like “I handed a package to my mom”: “my mom” here is a recipient.

Actually, this depends on the verb, just like in English. Some popular verbs of speech, writing or “giving” will use the bare Dative for the recipient: говори́ть, сказа́ть, писа́ть, чита́ть, дать, принести́ and so on.

Dative prepositions

  • по: the basic meaning is “movement along the surface”("covering" it) which may realise as “walking around the park”, “running down the street”, “looking for it all over the house” etc.
  • к: towards, to. Often used when you are going towards somebody (“towards Anna” = «к Анне»)
  • several bookish prepositional phrases like «благодаря́» (thanks to) or «вопреки́» (contrary to)

По has an additional meaning, “apiece” or "each" : «Они́ взя́ли по три я́блока»=”They took 3 apples each”.

There is a bookish use of «по» meaning "upon". It goes with Prepositional, and is mostly used in set prepositional phrases like «по оконча́нии» (upon completion).

Cases in plural

Plurals generally have only one pattern shared by all nouns. The ending only depends on the case, not the class of a noun:, «я говорю́ о дома́х, стра́нах, города́х, я́блоках, дочеря́х».

Only the Nominative and (especially) the Genitive have a number of different plural endings that depend on the class of a noun.

Levels

  1. 1) Alphabet 1
  2. 2) Basics 1
  3. 3) Phrases 1
  4. 4) Единственное число
  5. 5) Name and polite "You"
  6. 6) Plurals
  7. 7) Where is it?
  8. 8) Animals 1
  9. 9) Genitive Case - 1
  10. 10) Possessive Modifiers 1
  11. 11) Partitive
  12. 12) Accusative Case: the direct object
  13. 13) Verbs Present 1
  14. 14) Infinitive, Likes and Dislikes
  15. 15) Food
  16. 16) Adjectives Introduction
  17. 17) Conjunctions
  18. 18) There is
  19. 19) Questions
  20. 20) People 1
  21. 21) Around you
  22. 22) Prepositions and Places
  23. 23) Verbs Present 2
  24. 24) Time and Numbers
  25. 25) Family
  26. 26) People 1
  27. 27) Weather and Nature
  28. 28) Sport
  29. 29) Adjectives 1
  30. 30) Past & Infinitive
  31. 31) VLAD
  32. 32) Dative and Plurals
  33. 33) Reported speech
  34. 34) Perfective Verbs
  35. 35) I
  36. 36) Body and Health
  37. 37) Genitive Plural
  38. 38) Adjectives 2
  39. 39) Short and Long
  40. 40) Perfective verbs
  41. 41) Countries and Places
  42. 42) House
  43. 43) Reflexive
  44. 44) Time expressions 2
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  48. 48) Imperative2
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  52. 52) Being Instrumental
  53. 53) Placing Objects
  54. 54) Kitchen and Food
  55. 55) Speaking
  56. 56) Subjunctive
  57. 57) Compound Future
  58. 58) Prefixed Verbs of Motion
  59. 59) Arts & Entertainment
  60. 60) Together
  61. 61) Numbers 2
  62. 62) Adjectives 3
  63. 63) Plans
  64. 64) Prepositions 2
  65. 65) The Same
  66. 66) Fleeting Vowels
  67. 67) Measure
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  69. 69) Morphology
  70. 70) History & Fantasy
  71. 71) Participles
  72. 72) Computers & Internet
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  74. 74) Science
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  77. 77) Some Spoken Patterns
  78. 78) Nothing Left
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