Russia forum < How difficult is learning Russian?

  • Maxim Buyakov

    Unbearable Russian Grammar: pluralization

    posted by  Maxim Buyakov in Russia forum 

    Being a Russian native, I never gave a thought to how we Russians were handling pluralization. That is, until I was recently asked by a customer.

    See below and cheer that you do not have to learn Russian (yet :D) Or - that you are a native Russian :) .

    So, here we go.

    A client asked: "Do you have separate words for singular and plural in Russian, e.g. would you have one word for 'comment' and another word for 'comments'?"

    Our Reply:

    Re your question, yes, there are 'comment' and 'comments' in Russian, eg there may be a comment on a report, or a comments column in a table. (But there isn't plural for 'bikini', or, say, 'kangaroo', as these are foreign words that do not end in a consonant or -a like Russian.

    "Another question regarding pluralisation:

    With regards to the Russian words if we need to pluralize a words such as "item" does the pluralization depend on the quantity of items that are being pluralized?

    Phrased in a more general way: Is there ever more than one way to pluralize a single Russian word?"

    Our Reply:

    * When explicitly used with a counting number, the form for 2,3 and 4 items is identical to singular genitive case.
    For 5 - 20 items it's plural genitive.

    Then,
    21, 31, ..., 101 ... = 1 - always singular (like '21 item').
    22-24, ..., 102-104, 122-124 ... = 2 - 4
    25-30, ... 105-120, ... = 5 - 20

    So, we have 1 item (singular), 2,3 and 4 'item-a', 5-20 'item-ov'

    * When not counted, then it's a singular 'item' and plural 'item-y', either subject to 6 cases including the nominative (original).

    Our Reply 2:

    -- I just realised that it's a noun only that is singular genitive, but an adjective to it would be plural genitive.
    It is a plural adjective coupled with a singular noun, both genitive.

    In addition, if the numbers 2, 3 and 4 are themselves in the genitive or other indirect case ("Of 2 items...") then the trailing adjectives and nouns are all plural.

    I guess we Russians don't get confused because 2, 3 and 4 end in a vovel, while 5-20 - in a consonant, and that reflects in our heads.

    - - -
    Originally posted at englishdic.livejournal.com/1942.html

    -----------------
    Maxim Buyakov
    Principal, Maxim Global Services
    Russian/English Technical and Legal Translation, Voiceover
    http://www.AskMaxim.com/

Post a reply

Other replies