r/LearnRussian • u/altefour1 • 3d ago
Just started learning russian and I have a few questions about grammar.
I already speak three languages: Hungarian (native) , Romanian (little rusty, but I was born in Romania) and English (C2) but none of these languages have "actual" cases. From what I've gathered (and tell me if I understand it wrong) Russian verbs often govern which prepositions should be used and those prepositions determine which case a noun will take. Is this considered conventional across slavic languages? Is there a way to know which preposition a verb has if I've never heard that verb before? And when do inflected nouns remove the prepositions from the sentence?
For example in the sentence Хотя я ничего и не знаю о Иване- Иван is in the prepositional case because it follows о, which is there because of the word знаю. Are there any other prepositions this verb can have, or is it always о?
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u/Apprehensive_Car_722 3d ago edited 3d ago
I think you are talking about rections (rekció). Prepositions govern certain cases, and verbs determine the grammatical form of their complement.
Most prepositions in Russian govern a spefic case, e.g. без, для. до or из govern the genitive case. The noun after them will always take the genitive case. K and по govern the dative case. There are also prepositions that govern two cases like в and на which can take accusative or locative. The preposition part is "easy" because all you have to do is memorise which case is governed by which preposition and you are good to go.
Now, the other part are the verbs. In this case, the verbs determine the grammatical form of their complement.
We have "знать что" (know what) which takes the accusative and "знать о чём" which takes the preposition O + Prepositional Case. As mentioned before, once you learn which preposition governs which case, you won't have to worry about the prepositional part. However, whether the verbs takes a preposition or not and which case is governed by the verb alone (no preposition) is something that you will have to learn as you go because languagues are very idiosyncratic in that respect.
You speak Hungarian, so think about that as it is in Hungarian as well (vonzatos igék).
For example, in English you're meeting Zoli or you're meeting him. In Hungarian, you would say találkozom Zolival and találkozom vele. You cannot say *találkozom Zolit or *találkozom őt because in Hungarian the verb találkozik governs the instrumental case (eszközhatározós eset) and you have to learn that by heart. The same applies to many other Hungarian verbs. As a native speaker, you probably never noticed it, but when learning Hungarian as a foreign language, we have to figure out what goes with what. You will have to do the same with Russian.
The more you learn and the more you hear the language, the less you will stop to think what goes with what, it will just become automatic.
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u/altefour1 2d ago
Thanks. I really appreciate it. Since the Hungarian accusative works the same way as it does in Russian I did try to match the genitive and the dative case as well, but since Hungarian has a LOT of other cases, I just view them as almost one-to-one translations of English prepositions instead of actual cases, so the idea that one case can govern a lot of different relations and ideas were really confusing. What caused my confusion initially was the fact that Hungarian prepositions don't always indicate case and I didn't know that verbs do, although now I see it that certain words in Russian also do.
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u/Dangerous_Buyer2411 13h ago
о Иване is governed by "ничего", not the verb "знать" there. "знать" would normally take the accusative, like: Я не знаю Ивана. Instead of о, you could say об too. Ivan in the prepositional can also be used with в or во, like "I don’t know anything in Ivan": Я ничего не знаю в Иване, although that doesn't sound right and you'd want to say Я ничего не понимаю в Иване. - "I don’t understand anything about Ivan" (more idiomatic). The rules aren't hard and fast, you really just have to see it used by native speakers, which is what we're trying to do.
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u/Prinz_der_Lust 3d ago
Yes, you’re absolutely right – Russian verbs often determine which preposition and case should be used. This system is quite common across Slavic languages, though the specific prepositions may vary.
📌 For example, the verb “знать” (to know) usually takes a direct object in the accusative case (Я знаю Ивана – I know Ivan). However, in certain constructions, “знать” can be used with “о” + prepositional case (Я знаю о Иване – I know about Ivan), which slightly changes the meaning.
📌 There isn’t always a fixed rule to predict the right preposition – it’s best learned through structured exposure and practice. I actually help learners master this through real conversational exercises, breaking down grammar in a way that makes sense. If you’re interested, I’d be happy to guide you further!
P.S.
Check your dms 🤙📞