Nominative Case

The nominative (именительный падеж) marks the subject of a sentence: the person or thing doing the action. It answers кто? (who?) and что? (what?). It is also the dictionary form: every noun you look up is listed in the nominative singular.

Think of the nominative as the noun "at rest." The moment a noun does anything else (gets acted upon, shows possession, becomes a destination), it leaves the nominative and takes one of the other five cases.

Because the nominative is the base form, its endings are what define a noun's gender. There is nothing to "add": this is the shape you start from.

The nominative has three everyday jobs.

1. The subject: the doer of the verb (as in §01).
2. The predicate noun: in "X is Y" sentences, both nouns are nominative, and the verb быть (to be) is dropped in the present, often replaced by a dash.
3. Naming: labels, titles, and anything after это (this is…).

The clearest way to feel the nominative is to watch the same noun change as its role changes. Take книга (book):

Same book, two forms: книга → книгу. That swap is the case system. Once the nominative feels automatic, the natural next step is the accusative (the direct object), and the cases overview maps out all six.

Defaulting everything to the nominative. It's the form you learn first, so it's tempting to use it everywhere. Only the subject and the predicate noun are nominative; objects, possession, and locations all take other cases.

Adding "is" in the present. Russian drops быть: say Он врач, not Он есть врач.

Changing это. In "this is…" sentences это is invariable: это книга, это книги; it doesn't agree with what follows.