Numbers in the Dative Case

To say "by 5:00," or that you've helped three students, or walked up to or trust two people, you'll need to use the dative case forms of numbers.
If you've learned the genitive case forms, the dative will be easy! Just a few forms are different, and this video includes a tip for remembering them. You'll see examples of usage from the Russian National Corpus, and a mention of a wonderful opera by Prokofiev: "For the Love of..." (can you guess the rest?).

[@CrazyDreamer1001]

I find all these number forms fascinating but difficult to fully learn; I don't hear enough examples of them being used for them to sound natural. The instrumental case seems to be the worst, I hope I will never have to say "четырьмястами".

[@russiangrammar]

I'm pretty sure I've never had to say "четырьмястами" ... if it's any comfort, Russians also sometimes hesitate when it comes to long numbers: new.gramota.ru/spravka/buro/search-answer?s=четырьмястами

[@bracco23]

Great Video! It gave me a strong dejavu feeling, had to actually double-check I hadn't already seen it. Probably because dative and prepositional behave a lot similarly.

[@russiangrammar]

Yes, most of the forms are the same! I hope that taking them one at a time, and focusing on useful things to say (в двух городах, привыкнуть к трём вещам, etc), will make them more manageable. :)

[@CrazyDreamer1001]

I am also having trouble finding information about if it is possible to do this for any number in Russian, like in Polish (from a Polish grammar book): "REIFIED NUMERALS. Reified numerals, which are feminine nouns ending in -ka, are used to refer to items by numerical designation: 1 jedynka 5 piàtka 9 dziewiàtka 2 dwójka 6 szóstka 10 dziesiàtka 3 trójka 7 siedemka 11 jedenastka 4 czwórka 8 ósemka 12 dwunastka and so on. For example, dziesiàtka could be used to refer to room number 10; a 10-millimeter wrench; a bus number 10; polska jednastka the Polish eleven refers to a soccer team; and so on. Reified numerals may be used colloquially in place of collective numerals: dwójka dzieci a couple of kids." (I'm trying to learn a bit of Polish too, not too seriously). This can be done in my native language (Swedish), but only for numbers up to twelve (and compound numbers ending in 1 to 9).

[@RanmaruRei]

1 - единица 2 - двойка 3 - тройка 4 - четвёртка 5 - пятёрка 6 - шестёрка 7 - семёрка 8 - восьмёрка 9 - девятка 10 - десятка 20 - двадцатка 30 - тридцатка 100 - сотка You can use them for sizes, bus numbers, etc. But it's quite restricted, compared to Polish. For instance, пятёрка хоккеистов (5 hockey players) sounds natural, because a hockey team has 5 people, but двойка детей (2 children) doesn't.

[@CrazyDreamer1001]

@@RanmaruRei Спасибо!

[@russiangrammar]

Спасибо, Rei Ranmaru!

[@heathensein6582]

@@RanmaruRei сотка sounds like it's 100 roubles or an are. I would prefer to use сотня

[@mehdiveisi6338]

Hail upon thee sir! Hope you are fine and safe from the pandemic. Would you care to explain the difference between these two expressions? Добрый вечер всем Всем доброго вечера

[@russiangrammar]

Спасибо за интересный вопрос! The first is the more common way to say "good evening, everyone." In the second, there's an implied verb желать, which takes the genitive case (Желаю вам счастья, любви...). Some say it's best to use the nominative for greetings, and leave the expressions with genitive for leave-taking, saying good-bye; it's very common to say всего хорошего or спокойной ночи. You can read more about it at new.gramota.ru/spravka/buro/search-answer?s=267553 and www.ekburg.ru/news/18/48204-kak-pravilno-dobryy-den-ili-dobrogo-dnya/

[@heathensein6582]

@@russiangrammar Personally, I don't see any significant difference. The first one is a bit akward as it looks like the parts are not supposed to go together except in some more frequent exressions like всем привет, I guess. You can use just the greeting part and hope people will react to you as you didn't explicitely included them in your greeting. The genitive will be interpreted as the parting expression when it's appropriate: всем хорошего дня/вечера; всем спокойной ночи. Всем доброго времени суток is heard on the Internet and it's 100% greeting, not parting. If you want to be sure you can just use всем здравствуйте; всем привет for greeting and всем до свидания; всем пока for parting. I don't like the resources that specialise on orthography and punctuations when it comes other domains (except for journalists' works that just can't be good), cause they adopt the same aproach (which they use for spelling) to the language. So we have to deal with the "correct" stress placements, bulshit reasoning for not to use the word "извиняюсь" on the grounds that -ся means -self as if you are forgiving yourself and not reggretting what you've done (they have no idea what a middle voice reflexive in Russian is. Собака кусается then is "the dog that bites itself" or what?). Ещё на ЕГЭ могут попасться задания, где нужно поставить слово в правильную форму, например, "скучать по ___ (вы)" which must be "скучать по Вас" for unknown reason when literally no one speaks or even writes this way. You could sound less dumb by just quoting the Bible in the Old Church Slavonic.

[@russiangrammar]

@@heathensein6582 Languages will always have variation, and speakers will have different feelings about what's correct or incorrect, appropriate or inappropriate. The discussions and disagreements are fascinating for a non-native speaker like me, thanks for commenting! :)

[@heathensein6582]

@@russiangrammar It's true. It's that I advocate for the generative aproach so that the native speakers' (plural) own perception is what defines the correctness. Especially when the description of the usage of some forms is wrong as in the case of извиняюсь.

[@breadpitt4920]

Why do they do this. It's so unnecessary.

[@russiangrammar]

It's part of the general pattern of modifiers matching the nouns they modify. But often native speakers avoid declining large numbers, so this part of the system may slowly fade with time - wait a couple hundred years and see! :)