Accusative case with inanimate nouns in the plural

Asked by Joe on April 6, 2018

Question

Hello. I came to live in Russia two months ago. I’d like to know about the accusative case . I have one question . The inanimate nouns in the plural of the accusative case take two different endings -ей and -ев . For example : людей but героев. When should I put ей and ев ? Which words take ев and which ей? How can I know this ? Is there some rule ? Thank you

Answer

Hello! Do you mean animate nouns in Accusative case?  The inanimate nouns in the Accusative case coincide with the Nominative plural:

Я вижу книги. I see the books.

Я беру стаканы. I take the glasses.

The Accusative animate plural coincides with the Genitive plural. There are many different endings, there is a special table, you can have a look at it here: http://www.russianforfree.com/grammar-of-russian-nouns-genitive.php

In the case of "героев", the Nominative singular ends in й, so, according to the table, the ending in the Accusative animate plural and Genitive plural is going to be ев.

In the case of люди-людей it is an exception, it has to be memorized,

 

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