Purpose

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to form and use the prepositional case, primarily to express location.

Lesson Explanation

Named for the fact that it ONLY ever appears after certain prepositions (never standing alone, unlike the nominative or accusative), the prepositional case is introduced early in this course specifically because of its everyday importance for expressing location — the single most common use a beginner needs.

The two prepositions genuinely most associated with this case for location are в (in) and на (on/at): Я живу в Москве. (I live in Moscow.) Книга на столе. (The book is on the table.)

Most nouns take the ending -е in the prepositional: masculine стол → столе, feminine -а → -е (Москва → Москве), neuter -о → -е (окно → окне). Feminine nouns ending in the soft sign take -и instead: дверь → двери.

A genuinely important distinction from English “in/on,” previewed for full contrast in Part 3, Lesson 3: the prepositional case expresses static location (where something IS), while movement TOWARD a destination uses a different case (accusative, already covered in the previous lesson) with the same prepositions: Я иду в школу. (I’m going to school — accusative, motion) versus Я в школе. (I’m at school — prepositional, static location) — the exact same preposition в, but a different case depending on motion versus rest, a genuinely elegant system directly comparable to the German two-way prepositions covered in an earlier-built Gabal course.

Practice Questions