The first declension includes feminine, masculine and combined nouns with -а(-я) ending.
These nouns are divided into three groups: hard, soft and mixed. In The Noun: Declensions article it was explained which nouns belong to each of these groups, so now it is time to learn how to change the nouns according to the cases and their groups.
From the previous article you have found out more about cases and their main points, so the next question you would probably ask is:
How to change the nouns according to the cases?
Well, for this purpose there are four declensions. Declensions are actually groups of nouns gathered due to their specific endings and genders. The first and the second declension also are divided into three different groups: hard, soft and mixed.
It looks like this:
I declension
hard group
soft group
mixed group
II declension
hard group
soft group
mixed group
III declension
IV declension
In the previous article it was mentioned, that the noun in Ukrainian language has seven cases. Here I would like to expand the topic, so that you can understand the purpose of cases and their meaning.
Why do we need cases?
We need them to show how the noun and other words in the sentence interact with each other. It is basically a grammatical category.
How to understand where to use a certain case?
You must put a certain question to a noun in the sentence. For example, in English you can put three kinds of questions to a noun depending on its role in the sentence.
The boy is playing with a kitten. (who? what?)
The word “boy” plays the role of a subject.
The boy hugged him. (who?/whom?)
The word “him” plays the role of a direct object.
His kitten.
The word “his” plays the role of a possessor. (whose?)
But in Ukrainian language you can put 6 types of questions.
The noun (іменник [i'mɛn:ɪk]) — is the main part of speech and it is the basis of Ukrainian grammar. Ukrainian nouns have three genders, they can be singular and plural and what is more important they have seven cases. Unlike English they do not have articles.
Depending on the noun's gender, number or case the other parts of speech (i.e. adjectives, pronouns, prepositions, numerals and verbs) will change.
For example:
Цей чоловік кладе книжку на стіл. — This man is putting (puts) a book on the table.
What we have here is the main noun “чоловік” (a predicate) which is masculine, singular and in nominal case (answers the question: “who?”). According to this we have to change the pronoun and the verb.
Let's talk about the genders
There are three of them:
Masculine (чоловічий рід).
Feminine (жіночий рід).
Neuter (середній рід).
The first thing one should start from, when learning a new language, is the alphabet.
Knowing the letters and sounds you will encounter during your long journey sure is useful and helps a lot with learning new words.
Once you have mastered the alphabet consider yourself officially in!
To be serious I find it really hard for English-speaking (or people whose native language is based on Latin alphabet) people to actually understand and “see” Cyrillic letters. Very often they confuse letters like “b” and “ь” or “R” and “Я” or “n” and “п” etc., which leads to some sort of mutant words. Can't say I can blame them, but if you want to study well and understand what you're studying you shouldn't mix the letters thus preventing the mess in your head and other people's heads.
