Quote Originally Posted by Lindsay View Post
Rosetta Stone teaches: Здесь три белые тарелки.

But on the very next page, it teaches this: Сколько злесь белых столов?

Why is it белые in the first sentence, but белых in the second?

I looked up the table for the genitive form of adjectives. I could see that белых was the genitive plural of белый, but that didn't explain why "three white plates" used белые. Then I remembered that genitive plural is used for 0 and 5+, but genitive singular is used for quantities 1-4. I thought perhaps I had to use the genitive singular adjective for "3 plates", but according to my chart that would be белего!

My native Russian speaking penfriends can't even agree on the correct form of the first sentence - some of them say it's correct, but others say it should be Здесь три белых тарелки. If they can't even agree, what hope is there for me?

So please - can someone explain the logic of when to use белые and when to use белых - and perhaps also why it's not белего?

Thanks,
Lindsay
Hello, Lindsay! I am not a teacher of Russian and my English is not very well too) But I try to help you.
Look, for example: 1)There are WHITE apples on the plate - на тарелке БЕЛЫЕ яблоки.2) I bought some WHITE apples - Я купил немного БЕЛЫХ яблок. WHITE=WHITE in English but in Russian in second sentence we say БЕЛЫХ, because it's adjective in genetive case. В русском и существительные и прилагательные изменяются по подежам(cases). You can see more: Russian Genitive Case - Russian Language Lesson 10