Russian Adjectives (Прилагательные)

Useful, practical, interesting: adjectives are everywhere and unavoidable. So it’s worthwhile, rewarding, engaging – even essential – to be able to use them when speaking and writing. These resources and instructions will help you get started.

Forms and Endings

We’ll first look at how Russian adjectives change (forms and endings), then move on to vocabulary and usage.

Agreement in gender and number

Russian adjectives agree with the noun in gender and number. Compare: new text, new idea, new morning, new plans: новый текст (m.), новая идея (f.), новое утро (n.), новые планы (pl.).

24 possibilities

These four categories (masculine, feminine, neuter, plural), multiplied by six cases, would give 24 options for each adjective. And in a way, that’s true – and yet not quite, since many forms are identical. Then again, it almost is, because within each of those 24 options there are often two or more variants.

Which form to use depends on hardness/softness, stress, and spelling rules. For more on this, see Adjectives and Spelling Rules (Russian grammar, 2015, 3 mins) and (from the same channel) The Letters of the Three Spelling Rules of Russian (2013, 2 mins).

You may want to first watch Adjective Agreement in Russian (Nominative) (Russian grammar, 2013, 7 mins) and Adjective Endings. Adjective-noun Agreement (Amazing Russian, 2024, 24 mins). For beginners, understanding these forms in just the nominative case is already quite an achievement.

Hard and soft

The grammar behind hard/soft stems can be easily bypassed or made less urgent. There aren’t many soft-stem adjectives, and you’ll quickly recognize them. They often describe time or place. Memorize these, and you’ll already be quite far along:

• ближний (near)
• верхний (upper/high)
• весенний (spring)
• вчерашний (yesterday’s)
• дальний (far)
• домашний (home)
• завтрашний (tomorrow’s)
• зимний (winter)
• летний (summer)
• нижний (lower)
• осенний (autumn)
• передний (front)
• поздний (late)
• последний (last)
• ранний (early)
• сегодняшний (today’s)
• синий (blue)
• средний (middle)

See also Hard and Soft Stems (Amazing Russian) and Hard and Soft Consonants in Russian (Russian grammar).

More Russian Adjective Agreement

• How to agree adjectives with nouns in gender (Russian with Aurora, 2019, 9 mins)
• Russian adjectives – Tutorial (R for Russian, 2018, 14 mins), from the same channel Russian Music with Adjectives (2018, 31 mins)
• Online Russian Classroom: Gender of Adjectives (College Russian, 2018, 10 mins)
• Russian adjectives – Russian language course (Real Russian Club, 2018, 41 mins)
• Russian adjectives and their endings, declension of Russian adjectives (A. Romaker, 2018, 20 mins)
• Cases of Adjectives | Russian Language (Be Fluent in Russian, 2017, 7 mins)

Vocabulary and Usage

Grammar only comes alive when you apply it. So, build your vocabulary – adjectives are a great place to start.

Opposites

Learn adjectives in pairs that are opposites. Cold/hot, dark/light, good/bad, etc. You’ll remember them better – the words serve as reminders for each other – and you’ll learn twice as much. See Russian Antonyms.

Labeling

Label everything you see and encounter. Thin/fat, young/old, beautiful/ugly, big/small. It works with objects and people, the latter being the most fun. Just say it out loud—they probably won’t understand you anyway. Most likely.

Watch 8 Adjectives For Describing People In Russian (Russian With Max, 2018, 7 mins) and How to describe appearance in Russian (Daria Mikhay, 2018, 12 mins). See/read Describe People in Russian (Rocket Languages) and Russian Adjectives List. 50 Adjectives for Personality (Linguajunkie).

Colors

For describing objects, you’ll need words for colors. Check out Reviewing Adjectives of Color in Context: Какой? Какой цвет? Какого цвета? (Amazing Russian, 2020, 17 mins), Russian vocabulary – Colours (Learnrussian.org, 2017, 5 mins), and Russian Lesson – Learn colors in context (Russian in Context, 2013, 5 mins).

For learning adjectives, also see How to Learn a Lot of Adjectives with Minimum Effort (Amazing Russian, 2019, 12 mins) and Learn Russian adjectives: memorize 6 words in 5 minutes! Russian antonyms (Anna Cher, 2017, 5 mins).

More Russian Adjectives

Watch

• Top 50 Russian adjectives that you should know (Easy Russian, 2020, 7 mins)
• 100 Most Used Russian Adjectives with Pictures (Russian with Nastya, 2020, 14 mins), from the same channel 25 Russian Adjectives you must know (2020, 10 mins)
• 20 most used Russian adjectives & adverbs (LRW Alfia, 2019, 16 mins)
• Russian adjectives in nominative (Easy Languages, 2019, 5 mins)
• Top 15 Russian Adjectives (Be Fluent in Russian, 2017, 5 mins)
• Russian vocabulary – Adjectives (Learnrussian.org, 2017, 6 mins), from the same channel How to make adverbs from adjectives? (2018, 6 mins)
• 90 Russian common adjectives reading (Denis Fedorov, 2016, 6 mins)
• Learn the Top 25 Must-Know Russian Adjectives (RussianPod 101, 2015, 12 mins)

Check/read

• 10 Russian adjectives describing size (Learn Russian Words)
• Adjectives in Russian (Master Russian), also see Declension of Adjectives
• Declension of Russian adjectives (Learn Russian Step by Step)
• Declensions of Russian Adjectives (LRW Masha)
• Russian Adjectives (My Languages)
• Russian/Grammar/Adjectives (Wikibooks)
• Прилагательные (PS Russian)

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Last updated March 26, 2026