Numbers in Russian
Let’s start with Russian cardinal numbers.
It’s a good idea to practice saying them first:
… and to practice even more:
Now you can easily tell your phone number in Russian, understand what a shop-assistant says about their prices and even more.
To be honest, mastering Russian cardinal numbers’ declension is not necessary for communicating with people (I’m absolutely sure that they’ll understand you if you use all the numbers in nominative), but if you want to speak like Russians do (or if learning grammar makes you happy), you’re going to like the next part of this article.
Yes, we change the form of a number according to its role in a sentence. This might seem a bit tricky at first, but in reality it’s not that difficult.
You can practice declension of cardinal numbers step by step:
Step 1. 1 and 2-4
Step 2. 5-20, 30
Сколько хвостов
у ДВАДЦАТИ котов?
Я говорила с ТРИДЦАТЬЮ ДВУМЯ иностранцами.
Step 3. 50, 60, 70, 80
Сколько хвостов
у ВОСЬМИДЕСЯТИ котов?
(I've never seen so many of them, have you?)
Step 4. 40, 90, 100 (this is easy, there are only two forms)
Сколько хвостов
у ДЕВЯНОСТА ПЯТИ котов?
Step 5. 200 -900 (it’s not that easy, sorry)
Step 6. It’s time to practice now, and I have an exercise for you
and a video lesson, of course
You can practice more difficult Russian cardinal numbers HERE
If you would like to further improve your knowledge of Russian grammar, check my text about the difficulty of Russian, or my other video lesson Why do we need to know grammar?
