Russian Cases - Genitive for Attribution and Possession

[@part9952]

Hello! I have got a question. I have some friends who live in Челябинск. Almost everyday i speak to them and learn from them but i noticed something that even they cant answer. For example "Я знаю Ошибки" I know the mistakes thats perfectly fine but as soon as it comes to "Я НЕ знаю ошибОК" it gets strange.. why do i have to use the genitive here? My friends told me that for example "Я не знаю Домов" is wrong again cause it should be "Я не знаю эти дома" but "Я не знаю ошибКИ" just sounds strange and wrong to them... in the internet i read somewhere that everywhere where you make use of "Не знаю, не вижу, не помню...." you need to put the object into the genitive but other people say that its fine to just put it into the accusative and now i am confused. Because since i am a native speaker of german and in russian there are many many constructions that are the same in german im just confused and dont know what to say... Furthermore it seems that "Я не понимаю слов/слова" is again a sentence where both accusative and genitive work fine... its strange... (sorry for the huuuge text but you are my last hope in understanding this very problem :) )

[@part9952]

Also my friend from Ukraine doesnt know how to explain this question... so i guess its a rather strange question.. but since i want to master the russian language and one day wanna sound as if i am indeed a russian myself i need to know about this topic aswell!!! (sorry for any mistakes english is not my first language)

[@russiangrammar]

Excellent question! There's a tendency to use the genitive for *negated* direct objects - when you don't understand/see/etc something. The genitive is especially likely when negation is strong, or categorical: Я не понимаю ни одного слова. I don't understand a single word. You'll also see genitive when the object is something is general or abstract. Я не хочу никаких книг. I don't want any books. Я 25 лет не ем мяса. I haven't eaten meat in 25 years. If the object is more specific, then the accusative is more common: Я не хочу эту книгу. I don't want this book. Я тут не понимаю одно слово. I don't understand a (specific) word here./There's a word here I don't understand. So it depends on the context, and there can be some overlap - which is why I feel safer talking about a strong "tendency" rather than a strict rule. :)

[@part9952]

@@russiangrammar Okey! Thank you so much!!! Finally I know what this is all about! Usually the russian language is very consistent but in this case i just couldnt see a rule that can be applied everywhere! But thanks so much for the fast response!!! Спасибо большое и я вам передаю привет из Австрии!!!

[@Son_of_aesthetics]

Awsome tutorial мой таварищ! ;)

[@ienjoysandwiches]

i write it gAnatEEve to remember the 2 endings

[@ahmedyassintm]

nice

[@brendanlee8783]

this is not straight forward, why do they have different endings please explain further rather than assuming

[@russiangrammar]

Which endings are you asking about? Learning Russian is best done step by step, which is why the videos are broken down into short, separate topics. There are several videos on noun & adjective endings in the genitive case in this playlist: kzbin.info/aero/PLrIkLgUgjNHdqTEcxWfh7zFIjLLcIHlLy I do assume that people watching this video should have an understanding of how & why nouns and adjective endings change in Russian. If you haven't already covered that, you might watch this video on the basics of cases: kzbin.info/www/bejne/fmHdZmmwgbONjZI . Are you taking a course? If not, I'd strongly recommend you take a look at mezhdunami.org, a free online course that introduces important concepts in a reasonable, step by step way. :)