Marking the direct object of a sentence — what receives the action.
The Accusative case marks the direct object of a verb — the thing that directly receives the action. In "I read a book," "book" is the direct object and would appear in the Accusative in Russian: Я читаю книгу.
For inanimate nouns (objects, not people or animals), the Accusative rule is straightforward:
| Gender | Nominative | Accusative | Rule |
|---|---|---|---|
| Masculine | стол (table) | стол | No change for inanimate masculine nouns |
| Feminine (-а) | книга (book) | книгу | -а → -у |
| Feminine (-я) | неделя (week) | неделю | -я → -ю |
| Neuter | окно (window) | окно | No change |
In short: masculine and neuter inanimate nouns look identical to their Nominative (dictionary) form. Only feminine nouns visibly change, swapping their final -а/-я for -у/-ю.
Most transitive verbs — verbs with a direct object — take an Accusative object: читать (to read), смотреть (to watch), покупать (to buy), любить (to love), знать (to know), видеть (to see). Example: Я люблю кофе (I love coffee) — кофе is an indeclinable noun here, so no ending change is visible, but grammatically it's still functioning as an Accusative object.
A handful of common prepositions use the Accusative when expressing motion or a time period: в (into — motion, as opposed to location which uses Prepositional), на (onto — motion), and через (through/in — a time expression, e.g. через неделю, "in a week"). Compare Я иду в школу (I'm going into the school, Accusative — motion) with Я в школе (I am at school, Prepositional — location).
This page covers inanimate nouns only. Animate nouns (people and animals) follow a different pattern — their Accusative form matches the Genitive case instead, not the Nominative. That's a distinct, slightly more advanced rule covered in our full grammar index under the Genitive-Accusative overlap for animates.