Thread: "пять собак" different to "три собаки"

I can't find any information about this myself, so I have to ask for help!

одна собака (one dog)
две собаки (two dogs)
три собаки (three dogs)
четыре собаки (four dogs)
пять собак (five dogs)


1) I don't understand why the ending is changing when it's five? Is it because "пять" ends with a consonant or a soft sign ?

2) What should I learn from this example?

3) What's this called in grammatical terminology? (So I can google it and read more...)

Grateful for help!

5-20 собак, then last digit defines the case: 21собака 22-24собаки 25-30 собак and so on.

Thanks!

I understand - so it's because of the ending of the number word that the ending of the noun changes?

Does this happen with all words?

I need some more explanation to understand how it works, so I can apply it correctly to all words.

Originally Posted by Johanna

Does this happen with all words?

Nouns and correlated adjectives. I can give you tags for Google

Code:

падеж существительных сочетание  с числительными

but when I read the rules it's difficult to understand it even for me. You'd better learn some examples.

Originally Posted by Johanna

Thanks!
I understand - so it's because of the ending of the number word that the ending of the noun changes?

No, in fact you use nominative case when the number ends with 1 (1, 21, 31 but not 11 as it does not end with 1 - один). You use genitive singular, here собаки for numbers ending in two, three, four, and genitive plural, here собак, for any other numbers.

So imagine you'd have to say 'one dog, two of dog, three of dog, four of dog, five and more of dogs' in English.

Robin

Originally Posted by Johanna

1) I don't understand why the ending is changing when it's five? Is it because "пять" ends with a consonant or a soft sign ?

It is because of the remains of the Dual grammatical number
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_(grammatical_number)
which was in Old Russian in adition to singular and plural.

Dual is needed for numbers ended by 2,3,4 (except for those ended by 12,13,14 which need plural).
Numbers ended by 1 need singular (except for 11 which need plural).
All other numbers need plural.

Originally Posted by studyr

but when I read the rules it's difficult to understand it even for me. You'd better learn some examples.

Yup, what he said. A good grammar book will have a chapter devoted to using numerals in Russian, but it can be really hard to digest all at once. I think it's easier to internalize the main rules a few at a time, slowly. The first thing to remember is that for nouns that are the subject of a sentence:

1 takes nominative singular (1 Собака, Карандаш )
2, 3, and 4 take genitive singular (3 Собаки, Карандаша)
5-20 take genitive plural (8 Собак, Карандашей).

The next thing to remember is that the numerals for one (один) and two (два) must match the noun in gender:

1: один, одна, одно, одни (одни is when you have one of a plural noun, i.e. one clock (одни часы), since the word for clock is always plural... yes, in Russian you occasionally need to decide whether the number one is singular or plural!)

2: два (masc. and neut.), две (fem.)

Learn those rules first, internalize them, and when you can reliably say "двадцать пять собак" and "два карандаша" without having to think about it, learn the rules for adjectives. (They don't entirely match the nouns. Crazy language.) When you've internalized that, then learn the rules for declining numbers (when the noun isn't the subject of the sentence). Good luck!

What a great explanation Lynn, thanks a lot for this!

Thanks also iti-ogo for the link to Wikipedia!

My word, Russian is full of strange and complicated grammar!!!

Один мой друг (проффесиональный переводчик), когда я его спросил: " Очко, ( полное имя Очирбат) а какие правила образования множественного числа существительных в монгольском языке?" на пару секунд задумался, а потом (будучи абсолютно трезвым!) выдал:"Правила есть, но на самом деле их не существует". Я чуть руль на полном ходу не выронил, а вы говорите: "Правила"