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CLASS 9 · LEARNING KNOWLEDGE

Common short forms of adjectives and predicates in Russian

How it works

In Russian, in addition to the long forms of adjectives, e.g. ‹красивый› or ‹интересная›, there are also short forms, e.g. ‹красив› or ‹интересна›. These short forms are usually used predicatively and typically come after the subject: ‹Дом высок›, ‹Мальчик умён›. Common patterns are: masculine often without an ending or with a stem alternation, e.g. ‹готовый → готов›, ‹красивый → красив›; feminine ending in ‹-а›, e.g. ‹интересная → интересна›; neuter ending in ‹-о›, e.g. ‹готовое → готово›; plural ending in ‹-ы›/‹-и›, e.g. ‹готовые → готовы›. Not all adjectives have common short forms, and they are normally not used attributively before the noun.

Note
Choose the short form so that it matches the gender and number of the subject. The short form usually stands as a predicate after the subject, e.g. ‹Она свободна› or ‹Окна открыты›, not attributively before the noun as in ‹свободная девушка›.

An example

Choose the correct short form for the adjective ‹свободный› (frei) in the sentence: ‹Она ___.›

The correct answer is ‹свободна›, because the subject is feminine and the feminine short form is needed.

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Own explanation and own practice exercises by AmyMath. Subject reference framework: Russian. The topic assignment may vary by federal state.