Thread: a and y at the end of a word

Learning Russian through Rosetta Stone and it's kind of difficult because it doesn't tell you what the word you are trying to learn means. I'm currently on lesson 2 and I'm supposed to fill in the blanks. So my question is. What is the difference between a word that ends with "a" and a word that ends in "y"?

Most likely, it's in a different case.

For example, "книга" and "книгу" both mean "book", but "книга" is in the nominative case (subject) and "книгу" is in the accusative case (direct object).

Also, if a word ends in "а" in it's nominative form, it is a feminine word. And if it ends in "й" in it's nominative form, it is masculine.

In Russian, as well as in many other languages, noun (mostly ending of noun) is changed according to its role in the sentence. It is called case system. There are six most common cases in Russian.

English also has remnants of case system, for example personal pronouns have 3 cases in English: I-me-my, he-him-his etc.

Looks like you need to learn some theory to start.

>Also, if a word ends in "а" in it's nominative form, it is a feminine word. And if it ends in "й" in it's nominative form, it is masculine.
Not always! There are many exceptions. There are very few nouns that end in й.

Мой дядя самых честных правил, когда не в шутку занемог
Юрий Чайка арестовал моего дедушку.

The basic rule for IE languages is:
If noun ends in a consonant, masculine.
If noun ends in a, feminine
If noun ends in o or e, neuter.
With many adjustments in each language!!