Thread: В прошлую среду он купил билеты на поезд! (Help Please!)

I am currently using Rosetta Stone to study Russian along with Wiktionary to understand the case system and have got pretty far. However this sentence is tripping me up. I've just broke it down below and hope someone can correct me if I state anything wrong.

В прошлую среду он купил билеты на поезд

[В прошлую среду] I understand the в doesn't cause the prepositional case for days of the week, and the adjective "last" declines to the feminine accusative case to match the case of среда (also for some random reason accusative).

[он купил билеты] He bought tickets. купил being in the masculine past tense and билеты being in the plural accusative tense as it is the object that is being 'bought'

[на поезд] Now I understand he isn't buying tickets ON the train which would be the case of the prepositional case was used (поезде). but I'm slightly misunderstanding what is happening here. is it nominative or accusative? why isn't it genitive (tickets of the train). Can someone explain to me what case and why it is being used.

Again anything above could be wrong i'm just going from what I know, Thanks for your help.

"Билеты поезда" would indeed mean "tickets of the train", but it does not make much sense in this context.
"Билеты на поезд" (accusative) is a common expression for "train tickets". "Билеты на + Accus." works for most kinds of transport tickets, for example "Я потерял твой билет на паром" (I lost your ferry ticket)

Thanks so much for your help. The only other thing I've ran into a problem with is...

я жду самолёта/поезда/автобуса

The Rosetta Stone program uses this but for the life of me I can't see why as the accusative (object of what I am waiting for) is simply the same as the nominative (as they are all masculine nouns). Why is the genitive case being used?

Indeed, very complex topic with prepositions...
I noticed how in English often "for" is being used, and was surprised several times, as in "hope on"
Билеты:
на сеанс, на балет, на сегодня, на меня, на автобус... Но: в кино, в театр, в купейный вагон
Поиск/ожидание/...:
счастья, теплохода,... (without prepositions)
Надежда/Планы/...:
на успех, на выздоровление
Любовь/Ненависть/...:
к девушке, к комфорту, к чтению,....

I am afraid there are no rules here, one has to remember by practicing.

Genitive can be tricky. Along with obvious cases it can be used when:

a) the main verb is in negative -> Она не любит шума - She does not like noise
b) the verb refers only to the part of an object -> налить молока - to pour (some) milk
c) after certain verbs - просить, ждать, искать (and some others) -> Я ищу кота - I'm looking for a cat
d) after some verbs, that refer to fear and loss - бояться, лишаться, опасаться, etc. -> Он лишился сна - He lost his sleep

Originally Posted by ShakeyX

Thanks so much for your help. The only other thing I've ran into a problem with is...

я жду самолёта/поезда/автобуса

The Rosetta Stone program uses this but for the life of me I can't see why as the accusative (object of what I am waiting for) is simply the same as the nominative (as they are all masculine nouns). Why is the genitive case being used?

They say there are more than 6 cases in Russian
Search the forum for "partitive", for example...

Originally Posted by gRomoZeka

Genitive can be tricky. Along with obvious cases it can be used when:

a) the main verb is in negative -> Она не любит шума - She does not like noise
b) the verb refers only to the part of an object -> налить молока - to pour (some) milk
c) after certain verbs - просить, ждать, искать (and some others) -> Я ищу кота - I'm looking for a cat
d) after some verbs, that refer to fear and loss - бояться, лишаться, опасаться, etc. -> Он лишился сна - He lost his sleep

e) я жду самолёта

@ShakeyX

We often say "жду самолёт/автобус/электричку", too.

Originally Posted by maxmixiv

e) я жду самолёта

I like the it-ogo's explanation:

Originally Posted by it-ogo

Ждать поезда - какого-нибудь поезда вообще.
Ждать поезд - конкретный поезд.

Originally Posted by CoffeeCup

I like the it-ogo's explanation:

I too find it amazing. But for some reason it doesn't work with every word!
Because we just do not say "ждать электрички" (only Accusativ possible)

Again thanks for all your help guys. Regarding the Partitive case I found this;

partitive case (plural partitive cases)
(grammar) A noun case used to indicate that an object is affected only partially by the verb, or that the effect is not real. It often corresponds roughly to the English words "some" or "any." It is similar in many ways to the genitive case. Some languages that make use of the partitive case include Finnish, Estonian, and Russian.

So when you say Я жду самолёта it implies that you are waiting for "a plane". probably has more of a place in the sentence, I am waiting for a bus, when your at a bus stop, and do not have a specific ticket for a specific bus??? Correct? (oh I just read what CoffeeCup posted. Thanks

In regards to using Genitive as some of something, on my program I came across the sentence "Номер его комнаты - двадцать два". but another that said "Его чемодан красный".

so Его is HIS. this is the genitive of Он. but Suitcase and Red are both in Nominative.

Now with room, it has both His and the Room in the genitive. Is it referring to Number of His room? and this is why both are in genitive. It confuses me as its hard to see the ownership of the room being his if both are in genitive.

Yes, here pronouns take the case of the noun, they belong to. Who else but Он could own the suitcase in
"Его чемодан красный" ? Regarding room's number - it is slightly different way to describe noun's attribute.
To make them equal, we can match:

Номер его комнаты - 22. - Цвет его чемодана - красный.
Его комната имеет номер 22. Его чемодан красный (его чемодан имеет красный цвет).

Спасибо Большое maxmixiv))) I do understand, I guess its just as of current im using basic theory and expect everything to be in a very linear sentence structure. But like any language there is an easier and more flowing way to say things.

So its either Number "of" his room -is 22. or His Room has the number 22.//
Colour of his suitcase -is Red. or His suitcase has the colour red.

Exactly!