Me, to me, with me: the pronoun chart

The full chart: all six cases

Nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, instrumental, prepositional, each spelled in Latin letters with the stress marked:

Оно́ declines exactly like он everywhere except the nominative, so it needs no column of its own.

Now count forms instead of cells. Accusative and genitive are identical in every column. Dative and prepositional are identical for I and you. Нас and вас cover three cases each. The real memory load is about thirty short words, most of which you will have heard dozens of times before you sit down to learn them.

The н- rule for he, she and they

The third-person pronouns take an extra н- at the front whenever they follow a preposition directly:

That is why the prepositional row of the chart is all н-: the prepositional case only ever appears after a preposition, so it always has one. Otherwise the rule is mechanical: для неё (for her), без него́ (without him), о них (about them). The exceptions are a few longer prepositions built from other words, such as благодаря (thanks to), which keep the bare form: благодаря ему.

It applies to он, она́, оно́ and они́ and to nothing else. Меня́, тебя́ and нас never take it. And the possessive его́, meaning his, never takes it either: у него́ means he has, but with his brother is с его́ бра́том, with no н-, because there the word belongs to the brother, not to the preposition. The possessives get their own article, Russian possessive pronouns.

What each case is doing, with the pronoun

The case chart is only useful once you can hear why a form was chosen. The everyday uses:

• Accusative, the direct object: Я тебя́ люблю́ (I love you). Он меня́ не зна́ет (he does not know me).
• Genitive, most often after у for having, and after нет for not having: У меня́ есть брат (I have a brother). У него́ нет маши́ны (he has no car). The genitive case covers the construction properly.
• Dative, the person something is given or said to: Дай мне кни́гу (give me the book), Скажи́ ему́ (tell him). It is also the case of the person who experiences something: Мне нра́вится (I like it, literally to me it is pleasing), Мне хо́лодно (I am cold), Мне два́дцать лет (I am twenty). The dative case is where that habit is explained.
• Instrumental, mostly after с (with): Иди́ со мной (come with me), Я говорю́ с ним (I am talking to him).
• Prepositional, after о (about) and after в and на for location: Я ду́маю о тебе́ (I am thinking about you), Она́ говори́т о нём (she is talking about him). See the prepositional case.

Notice the small prepositions stretching to fit the pronoun. С becomes со before мной, к becomes ко before мне, and о becomes о́бо before мне: со мной, ко мне, о́бо мне. That is pronunciation, not grammar. A lone с or к does not sit comfortably in front of the cluster мн-, so Russian gives it a vowel, and о lengthens to о́бо there by the same habit.