Thread: Exception for genitive quantities rule?

In just a few weeks, I will be visiting Kiev. I intend to use Russian throughout my stay, as I do not know Ukrainian. There is one major issue, however--I realized that I do not know how to pluralize the Ukrainian currency. I am familiar with the pluralization rules for rubles (2-4=genitive singular, 5-20=genitive plural, etc.), but I am not sure if these apply to the гривня. I found out that the гривня is pluralized as гривні; is this regardless of how many (3 гривні vs. 10 гривні?) Since I will be speaking in Russian, should I change the ending to the Russian genitive singular, and Russian genitive plural, respectively?

Originally Posted by Novaya Zemlya

In just a few weeks, I will be visiting Kiev. I intend to use Russian throughout my stay, as I do not know Ukrainian. There is one major issue, however--I realized that I do not know how to pluralize the Ukrainian currency. I am familiar with the pluralization rules for rubles (2-4=genitive singular, 5-20=genitive plural, etc.), but I am not sure if these apply to the гривня. I found out that the гривня is pluralized as гривні; is this regardless of how many (3 гривні vs. 10 гривні?) Since I will be speaking in Russian, should I change the ending to the Russian genitive singular, and Russian genitive plural, respectively?

Yes, you should. There are two different Russian translations: гривна and гривня. The former is used in Russia. Ukrainian officials insist on the latter one.
Одна гривна (гривня)
Две гривны (гривни)
Пять гривен (гривен)

The rules of making plurals in Russian and Ukrainian are very much the same, though there are differences in both pronunciation and spelling (even alphabets are not identical).

If you speak Russian, then you just apply Russian inflection rules to any non-Russian names, like currency, place names, people names etc., regardless of where you are

рубль - 1 (один - masc.) рубль, 2 (два - masc.) - 4 рубля, 5-20 рублей, 21 рубль, 22-24 рубля, 25-30 рублей etc.
гривна - 1 (одна - fem.) гривна, 2 (две - fem.) - 4 гривны, 5-20 гривен etc.
доллар - 1 (один - masc.) доллар, 2 (два - masc.) - 4 доллара, 5-20 долларов etc.
квача - 1 (одна - fem.) квача, 2 (две - fem.) - 4 квачи, 5-20 квач etc. Квача — Википедия
песо - 1 (одно - neut.) песо, 2 (два - neut.) - 4 песо, 5-20 песо etc. (Non-Russian nouns in -о, -е do not decline - Russian rule)
лари - 1 (один - masc.) лари, 2 (два - masc.) - 4 лари, 5-20 лари etc. (All nouns in -и, -у, -э, -ю are non-Russian, and they do not decline - Russian rule) Грузинский лари — Википедия

The same applies to place names:
Ростов (Rus) - в Ростове (где?) - в Ростов (куда?) - из Ростова etc.
Бостон - в Бостоне (где?) - в Бостон (куда?) - из Бостона etc
Москва (Rus) - в Москве (где?) - в Москву (куда?) - из Москвы etc.
Прага - в Праге (где?) - в Прагу (куда?) - из Праги etc.

Foreign place names in -о, -е, -и, -у, -э, -ю never decline.

The same applies to people's names:
Джон - для Джона, к Джону, с Джоном
Сара - для Сары, к Саре, с Сарой

Foreign people's names in -о, -е, -и, -у, -э, -ю never decline.

Foreign feminine names do not decline if they end in a consonant (not -а/-я):
Элизабет - для Элизабет, к Элизабет, с Элизабет ...

It does not depend on what declension rules exist in the source language (if any). You do not need to care about them unless you start speaking another language.

BTW, for example, in Czech language they have a different pattern of declension:
Praha - v Praze - do Prahy - z Prahy etc.
There is a consonant mutation ("Praha" but "v Praze"). But you do not have to know about that when speaking Russian: "Прага" - "в Праге".