Cases: why я becomes меня

Russian has six cases, and six is the number that makes people put Russian down before they start. It should not be: the endings do the job English does with word order and little words like to and of, and they overlap far more than the tables let on.

What the endings are actually for

English marks a noun's job two ways: by position (the subject comes first) and by little words (to, of, with, by). Russian does most of it with one ending on the noun. Here are the six jobs, one colour per case:

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1. 1Ива́н
2. 2кни́гу
3. 3Ма́ше

Иван даёт книгу Маше: Ivan gives Masha the book. The giver is nominative, the thing given accusative, the person who gets it dative.

Four of the six are done in English with a preposition. You already make these distinctions every day; Russian simply puts them on the end of the word.

That is why Russian word order is free for emphasis: the ending, not the position, says who did what. Both of these mean Mum knows Ivan:

• Ма́ма зна́ет Ивана. - Mum knows Ivan.
• Ивана зна́ет ма́ма. - It's Mum who knows Ivan. (Mum last: she is the news)

Russian also has no word for the or a: кни́га is a book or the book, and context decides.

Start with the pronouns, because you already use them

The fastest way to stop finding cases strange is to notice that English does the same thing, on a handful of words:

• Я зна́ю. - I know. (I am doing it)
• Он меня́ не зна́ет. - He does not know me. (it is being done to me)
• Скажи́ мне. - Tell me. (it is being said to me)

I, me, to me. English changes the word too, and nobody finds that hard, because it is learned as vocabulary rather than as grammar. The Russian pronouns can be learned the same way: Russian personal pronouns has all of them in all six cases.