Russian Β· Chapter 13 Β· Lesson 12 Β· Grammar primer
Instrumental case
Prescribed by the Edexcel specification - revisited.
The short version
A tool takes no preposition at all
The thing you do something with goes into the bare instrumental: ΠΊΠ»ΡΡΠΎΠΌ, with a key. Adding Ρ changes the meaning to accompaniment, so s nozhom describes a man carrying a knife, not one using it. English with covers both ideas; Russian keeps them apart.
On otkryl dver klyuchom.
Was a doctor needs the instrumental
In the present a profession stays in the nominative, because Π±ΡΡΡ has vanished: on vrach. Bring Π±ΡΡΡ back in the past or future, or use ΡΡΠ°ΡΡ or ΡΠ°Π±ΠΎΡΠ°ΡΡ, and the role moves into the instrumental. It marks a hat someone wears for a time.
On byl vrachom.
That's the gist. The full article goes deeper - more examples, the edge cases, the why - and the practice below scores like a vocabulary session and earns the same XP.
Read the full article Β· 8 min readPractice
Practise this lesson
10-question session
One question at a time, mixed across the exercises in this lesson. Miss one and it comes back round before the end. There are 14 in all: practise more afterwards if you want them.
Lesson 12 of 17 in this chapter