Students are always comparing languages they speak with the one they're learning, even if teachers tell them not to. Well, why not? Finding a consistent pattern can be really useful. These patterns are not always given as rules in textbooks, but they help all the same.

For a Russian-speaker memorizing "numeral-plus-noun" stuff is a piece of cake: one dog - two (or more) dogS. But if you are an English-speaker studying Russian, you'll have to memorize a bit more.

Here are some tips to help you build the "noun section" of your vocabulary faster and more effectively.

Tip 1 Did you notice that in Russian it's NOT ENOUGH just to remember how to pronounce "two dogs" (cats, birds, etc.) to be through with plural? For example: 1 dog - одна собака; 2 dogs - две собаки; 3 dogs - три собаки; 4 dogs - четыре собаки; 5 dogs - пять собак; 6,7,8, 9…20 dogs - 6,7,8, 9…20 собак. Take almost any countable noun - with 2,3,4 there will be one ending in plural, and with 5 or more - another.

When memorizing a noun, you'd better remember two forms of its plural as well. How to? Just count the things you're memorizing, say, up to 10 (if the noun is countable, of course). Not only will you remember its two plurals, you'll memorize the word itself more effectively.

Tip 2 The same when numbers bigger than 20 end with 2, 3, and 4. If the number ends with 1, use singular form. For example: 21 dogs - двадцать одна собака; 22 dogs - двадцать две собаки; 23 dogs - двадцать три собаки; 24 dogs - двадцать четыре собаки; 25 dogs - двадцать пять собак.

More examples:

51 - пятьдесят одна собака; 123 dogs - сто двадцать три собаки; 1,184 dogs - тысяча сто восемьдесят четыре собаки; 4,357,962 dogs - четыре миллиона триста пятьдесят семь тысяч девятьсот шестьдесят две собаки (I guess it's a bit too many

If you already learn cases, the rules are:

• For 1 and numbers more than 20 which end with 1 - use nominative singular. E.g.одна собака, сто тридцать одна собака…
  
  
• For 2, 3, 4, use the genitive singular ending. E.g.две собаки; три собаки; четыре собаки.
  
  
• For numbers more than 20 which end with 2, 3, 4, also use genitive singular. E.g. сорок три собаки; двести шестьдесят четыре собаки.
  
  
• For all other numbers, use genitive plural. Пять собак; десять собак;восемьдесят шесть собак…

Numerals have plurals, too - that's why the rule is the same with words like thousand, million, billion (тысяча, миллион, миллиард). It's absolutely the same what to count - dogs or thousands…

… Because these nouns are of the same gender and get endings in different cases according to the same pattern. Russian word "тысяча" (thousand) is feminine (so is "собака", by the way), but "миллион" and "миллиард" (million and billion) are masculine.

Well, I meant GRAMMATICAL gender - masculine, feminine or neuter. Your teacher probably told you that unlike English, in Russian nouns have grammatical gender. In short, it means that "computer" is "he", "keyboard" is "she", "application" is "it", and nobody knows why. So,

Tip 3 Remember gender as well!

It will help you not to mix endings up when you'll be using this word.

When nouns form plurals, they must be in Genitive case. Masculine, feminine and neuter words most likely will have different endings in Genitive and belong to different declension patterns (patterns of changing endings when put in different cases). Sometimes even nouns of the same gender can belong to different declension patterns. (If you haven't yet started learning them, you probably will - pretty soon. For a beginner, whose native language is English, studying Russian system of declension can be pure horror. But don't give up and you'll make it:)

Tip 4 Remember the stress

Yet one more difficulty for a learner of Russian is STRESS. Not the stress you get when trying to memorize unfamiliar stuff like declensions. I mean stress in words. In such similar Russian words like золото (gold), болото (swamp), and молоко (milk) different syllables are stressed (first, second and third ones respectively). So, you'll never tell the stressed syllable just by looking at the word.

What's more, some Russian words, when stressed on other syllable, can turn into another words. The most known example is "замок" - it means "a castle" if the first syllable is stressed, and "a lock", if the second one. So, when you're writing words down - any words, not just nouns - ALWAYS place an accent mark over the stressed syllable. Place accent marks over words in all texts read in class. It will help you read them correctly afterwards.

As you see, Russian isn't easy to learn, but no language is - ask learners. Learning any language takes time and effort. Hope yours will pay soon. Good luck!

Alexandra Gamanenko
http://www.clever-crayon.com