Russian Dative Case: Giving, Telling and Feeling Cold

The Russian dative case is where the recipient goes: the person you give something to, tell something to or ring. That part is easy, because English marks the same idea with to. The part worth an article is the other half of its job. Russian treats a surprising number of feelings, states and even your age as something that happens to you, and the person something happens to goes in the dative.

Learn the dative as the case of giving and you will understand it. Learn it as the case of being cold, twenty and in need of help, and you will actually speak with it.

Job one: the person on the receiving end

With a verb of giving, saying, showing or writing, the thing handed over is in the accusative and the person who gets it is in the dative:

Дай мне кни́гу. (Dai mne knigu.) - Give me the book.

Скажи́ ма́ме. (Skazhi mame.) - Tell Mum.

Я пишу́ бра́ту. (Ya pishu bratu.) - I am writing to my brother.

Покажи́ мне. (Pokazhi mne.) - Show me.

English does exactly this with to, or with word order: give the book to me, give me the book. Russian needs neither, because the ending does the work, which is also why the word order can move freely around it.

The verbs to learn first are дать (to give), сказать (to say, to tell), показа́ть (to show), писа́ть (to write) and обещать (to promise). None of them will surprise you, because the English verbs take to as well.

The verbs that do surprise you

A handful of common verbs take the dative where English has a plain direct object. These are the ones that trip people up, because nothing in English warns you:

The logic is there if you squint. You do not ring your mother; you send a call to her. You do not help your father; you give help to him. Russian keeps the older picture of these verbs as a kind of giving, and English flattened it. Звонить and помогать are the two you will use weekly, so learn them with their case attached, as a unit: звонить кому, to ring whom-in-the-dative.

Job two: the person a state happens to

This is where the dative earns its reputation. English says I am cold: the cold is a property of me. Russian says Мне хо́лодно: literally to me it is cold. There is no subject and no verb in the present, just a person in the dative and a word ending in -о that describes the state.

Once you see the pattern, it is one construction rather than seven phrases. Swap the pronoun to change who is cold; swap the -о word to change what is happening to them. The past adds бы́ло and the future бу́дет, and neither agrees with the person, because the person is not the subject: Мне бы́ло хо́лодно, I was cold, whether you are a man or a woman.

The same pattern handles permission and need:

Мне на́до идти́. (Mne nado idti.) - I have to go.

Тебе́ нельзя́. (Tebe nelzya.) - You are not allowed to.

Мне мо́жно? (Mne mozhno?) - May I?

And needing a thing, where the word for needed agrees with the thing, not the person: Мне нужна́ по́мощь (I need help) has the feminine нужна́ because по́мощь is feminine; Ему́ ну́жен врач (he needs a doctor) has the masculine ну́жен.

Your age is also something that happens to you

A Russian does not say I am twenty. They say to me twenty years:

Мне два́дцать лет. (Mne dvadtsat let.) - I am twenty.

Ско́лько тебе́ лет? (Skolko tebe let?) - How old are you?

Ему́ пять лет. (Yemu pyat let.) - He is five.

The word for years changes with the number, год after one, го́да after two to four and лет from five up (going by the last digit, so 21 takes год, while 11 to 14 take лет), which is the Russian numbers rule at work rather than anything to do with the dative. The dative part never changes: the person whose age it is.

Liking: the sentence turned inside out

Russian's everyday verb for liking, нравиться, means to be pleasing. The thing you like is the subject, and you, the person pleased, are in the dative:

Мне нра́вится му́зыка. (Mne nravitsya muzyka.) - I like music. Literally: music is pleasing to me.

Тебе́ нра́вится кни́га? (Tebe nravitsya kniga?) - Do you like the book?

Мне нра́вятся кни́ги. (Mne nravyatsya knigi.) - I like books.

Look at the last one. The verb is plural because books are the subject. English speakers want the verb to agree with I, and it never does. If Spanish's me gusta is already in your head, this is the same machine with Cyrillic on it.

Люби́ть also means to like or love, and it works the English way round, with the loved thing in the accusative: Я люблю́ му́зыку. Нравиться is the everyday word for liking a particular thing or person, often on first acquaintance; люби́ть is for what you like or love in general and as a habit (Я люблю́ ко́фе, I like coffee), and for loving people.

The endings

The dative singular is the friendliest ending in the language: short, regular, and shared with the prepositional for most feminine nouns.

Оте́ц loses its е (отцу, отца́) in every case but the nominative, and мать and дочь grow an -ер- (ма́тери, до́чери) everywhere except the nominative and accusative singular. Those are features of the words, not of the dative, and you will meet them in every other case too.

The plural is simpler still. Every noun, whatever its gender, takes -ам after a hard stem and -ям after a soft one: женщинам (to the women), роди́телям (to the parents), лю́дям (to people), де́тям (to the children). One ending pair for the whole plural is the dative's gift to you, and the full case chart shows the instrumental and prepositional plurals are just as tidy.

The pronouns, which you will use far more than the nouns

Most dative sentences you actually say will have a pronoun in them, because most things happen to people and people get referred to by pronoun. Learn this column before worrying about any noun ending:

The н- in the last column appears whenever a third-person pronoun follows a preposition: к нему́, never к ему́. It is the same н- you meet in every case, so it is worth drilling once with the personal pronouns rather than case by case.

Two prepositions that take the dative

• к (k) means towards, and with a person it means to their place or to see them: Я иду́ к врачу́ (I am going to the doctor's), Иди́ к ма́ме (go to Mum). Before мне it becomes ко for ease of saying.
• по (po) means along, around or by means of: Мы идём по у́лице (we are walking along the street), Он говори́т по телефо́ну (he is talking on the phone).

К is worth fixing early because English uses to for both places and people. For a place, Russian uses в or на with the accusative; for a person, it uses к with the dative. You go в шко́лу, but к учи́телю.

Mistakes English speakers make

1. Я хо́лодно. The single most common one. The person goes in the dative: Мне хо́лодно. The same goes for every state in -о.
2. Я два́дцать лет. Same fix: Мне два́дцать лет. Russian has no I am for age.
3. Liking backwards. Trying to make I the subject of нравиться produces nonsense. The liked thing is the subject: Мне нра́вится му́зыка, and the verb agrees with the music.
4. Accusative after ringing and helping. Я звоню́ ма́му is wrong, however natural the English makes it feel. It is Я звоню́ ма́ме, and Я помога́ю отцу.
5. в for going to a person. You cannot go into the doctor. Use к врачу́.
6. Forgetting the н-. к ему́ is wrong; к нему́ is right.

Notice that the first three are the same mistake: treating the experiencer as a subject because English does. Fix that instinct once and most of the dative looks after itself.

What to do next

Start with the pronoun column, and with three sentences: Мне хо́лодно, Мне нра́вится, Мне на́до. Say them about yourself, then about him, her and them, until swapping мне for ему́ or им is automatic. That covers more real conversation than every noun ending in the table.

Then pair the dative with the accusative, because the verbs of giving use both at once: Дай мне кни́гу has the recipient in one case and the thing in the other. And keep one eye on verb aspect, since дать and сказа́ть are perfectives whose everyday imperfective partners, дава́ть and говори́ть, turn up in all the same dative sentences. The Russian course drills мне, тебе́ and ему́ from its first chapters, because nobody gets through a day in Russian without them.