Quote Originally Posted by Steve K View Post
I'm just starting to learn Russian and feel overwhelmed by all the different forms of words. When I learn a new word should I try to memorize the different cases for nouns or just the nominative
My general recommendation:

For nouns, always make a habit of memorizing the nominative and genitive singular at the same time. Once you get used to the general case declensions for Russian nouns, you will USUALLY be able to figure at all the other forms of a noun if you know the nom. and gen. sing. (As you progress, you'll learn that for certain categories of nouns it's helpful to memorize the nom. and gen. plural, too, along with the singular. And certain nouns have irregular case forms that you'll deal with later. But you really can't go wrong by always learning the nom. and gen. sg. of any new noun.)

For verbs, you should at minimum memorize three forms: the infinitive plus the 1st-person sing. AND 2nd-person sing. of the non-past conjugation. In general, once you've learned the basic conjugation patterns, you can logically deduce the rest of the forms based on these three. (But, again, as you progress, you'll figure out that with certain verbs it's also extremely helpful to memorize certain other forms, especially the 3rd-person plural and the masculine past.)

With adjectives, once you've picked up the general patterns, learning the masc. nom. sing. will usually allow you to figure out all of the feminine and neuter forms in both the singular and plural.

Incidentally, a good-quality unabridged Russian/English dictionary will tend to reflect the above observations -- e.g., for the vast majority of nouns, only the nom. and gen. singular are given in a dictionary, because it's assumed that once you've digested the basic case-ending paradigms, you should be able to work out the other 10 forms based on these two. But a good dictionary will also list any "unpredictable" forms if a given noun happens to have them.

Good luck!