The Prepositional Case

Just like the name implies, the prepositional case is always used with prepositions in the sentences like "Я говорю... о доме, о маме, об окне" (I talk ... about house, about mother, about window) and "Он находится... в доме, в пути" (He is... in a house, in the way).

When to use the Prepositional

1. The prepositional case is used to designate the place. The nouns answering the question "where" are often used with the prepositions в and на.

2. The prepositional case is also used to designate the person or object being talked or thought about. Thus, the prepositional case is used after the preposition o with the verbs like говорить, думать.

3. The prepositional case is used with names of the months to designate time.

How to form the Prepositional

The prepositional is formed from the nominative singular nouns with the help of the following endings: -e, -и, -у, -ю (singular); -ax, -яx (plural). You will generally need to remove the last letter from the nominative singular noun and add one of these endings.

The tables below sum up how the prepositional of nouns is formed.

The prepositional of singular nouns

Explanation of the table:

All feminine nouns ending in -ь, -ие, neuter nouns ending in -ие, as well as masculine nouns ending in -ий get the new ending -и in the prepositional case. Some masculine nouns end in -у, -ю in the prepositional when used after the prepositions в and на.

For example: в саду, на краю, на берегу.

After the preposition o (about) the same nouns get the ending -е in the prepositional.

For example: о саде, о крае, о береге.

The prepositional of plural nouns

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