Quick answer
The nominative answers кто? что? (who? what?). It marks the subject of the sentence and is the form you find in a dictionary.
Э́то мой брат. Брат рабо́тает.
This is my brother. My brother works.
When you need it
1. The subject — who does it
2. After Э́то — “this is”
3. In the present there is no “is”
The endings
| Noun ends in | Nominative | Example |
|---|---|---|
| masculine | consonant, -й, -ь | стол, музе́й, слова́рь |
| feminine | -а, -я, -ь | ма́ма, неде́ля, ночь |
| neuter | -о, -е, -мя | окно́, мо́ре, и́мя |
| plural | -ы / -и / -а | столы́, кни́ги, о́кна |
The gender is readable from the ending — that is the whole point of learning it first.
How to spot the gender
Ends in a consonant → masculine. Ends in -а/-я → feminine. Ends in -о/-е → neuter. The soft sign -ь can be either, and has to be learned per word (слова́рь is masculine, ночь is feminine).
Adjectives and pronouns
| Masculine / neuter | Feminine | Plural | |
|---|---|---|---|
| ending | -ый / -ой / -ий | -ая / -яя | -ые / -ие |
| но́вый (new) | но́вый | но́вая | но́вые |
| this | э́тот / э́то | э́та | э́ти |
The adjective copies the gender of its noun: но́вый стол, но́вая кни́га, но́вое окно́.
Typical mistakes
Он есть врач.
Он врач.
Russian has no “is” in the present tense. The word есть exists, but means “there is” — not the link between subject and job.
Э́то кни́гу.
Э́то кни́га.
After Э́то the noun stays in the dictionary form.
Check yourself
___ рабо́тает в Москве́. — My brother works in Moscow.