Russian Adjectives

In Russian adjectives agree with nouns in number, gender and case.
Plural forms are the same for all three genders.

Declension of Russian Adjectives

Russian adjectives have following declension types:

• adjectives with hard or soft ending
• adjectives with a stem ending in -г, -к, -х
• adjectives with a stem ending in sibilants -ж, -ч, -ш, -щ

(Stressed vowels are written in italic.)

* Accusative Singular of masculine adjectives and Accusative Plural of all adjectives take the same form as Nominative if it refers to an animate noun.

Она хочет купить белый костюм. – She wants to buy a white suit.
Я вижу важные документы. – I see important documents.

* Accusative Singular of masculine adjectives and Accusative Plural of all adjectives take the same form as Genitive if it refers to an inanimate noun.

Она хочет купить белого щенка. – Sche wants to buy a white puppy.
Я вижу важных людей. – I see important people.

Short and long form of Russian adjectives

Russian adjectives have a long and a shot form. To make an adjective short it is usually enough to drop the ending of the long form.

There are following short form endings:

• masculine: no ending
• feminine: -a
• neuter: -o
• plural: -ы / -и

**If the stem of an adjective ends in two consonants, the short form is made by inserting an -o or an –e between the consonants.

Example:
Его дедушка больной человек. – His grandfather is an ill man.
Его дедушка болен. – His grandfather is ill.

There are also special cases like, for example,
маленький (small) – мал (m) – мала (f) – мало (n) – малы (pl)

Эти туфли слишком маленькие. – These shoes are too small.
Эти туфли мне малы. – These shoes are too small for me.

Degrees of Comparison of Russian adjectives

COMPARATIVE

In Russian regular comparative is formed by adding the ending -ее (-ей) to the word stem.

Example:
An important message – важное сообщение
This message is more important – это сообщение важнее

Compound comparative of Russian adjectives is formed with the help of the adverb более (more).
Example:
An important message – важное сообщение
A more important message – более важное сообщение

SUPERLATIVE

In Russian regular superlative is formed by adding the ending -ейший (m), -ейшая (f), -ейшое (n), -ейшие (pl) to the word stem.

Examples:

Masculine:
An important case – важный случай
The most important case – важнейший случай

Feminine:
An important piece of news – важная новость
The most important piece of news – важнейшая новость

Neuter:
An important announcement – важное сообщение
The most important announcement – важнейшее сообщение

Plural:
Important news – важные новости
Most important news – важнейшие новости

Compound superlative is formed with the help of the adjective самый (most).

Example:
An important announcement – важное сообщение
The most important announcement – самое важное сообщение

Learn Russian

• Russian Language Exercises online (some with audio samlples)
• Russian language course
• Russian pronunciation
• Russian nouns
• Russian adjectives
• Russian pronouns
• Russian verbs