The accusative case

After this page you will be able to put any noun into the accusative, in the singular and the plural. You will know the one rule that trips up most learners: masculine nouns for people and animals behave differently from nouns for things. You will also use the accusative after common verbs, after the prepositions в (у), на, за, про and че́рез, and to say on Monday.

Cases, an overview introduced the accusative as the case of the direct object. This page gives the full set of endings.

What the accusative does

The accusative has three main jobs:

• The direct object: the person or thing the action is done to. Я чита́ю кни́гу. (I’m reading a book.)
• After some prepositions, most often for a direction: Я йду в шко́лу. (I’m going to school.)
• Some time expressions: у понеді́лок (on Monday).

Singular endings

Only some nouns change in the accusative singular. Feminine nouns in -а and -я always change. Masculine nouns change only when they name people or animals. Neuter nouns never change.

The endings are set out in the official orthography [src: pravopys-2026, §71, §84, §95]. Some notes:

• Masculine nouns in -а follow the feminine pattern. Names such as Мико́ла become Мико́лу: Я ба́чу Мико́лу.
• Masculine nouns in -о name people, so they take the genitive form: ба́тько → ба́тька (father).
• Stress can move. Середа́ (Wednesday) becomes се́реду, with the stress on the first syllable. Stress shifts like this are shown in the dictionary paradigm.

People and animals: the masculine rule

Grammars sort nouns into animate nouns, which name people and animals, and inanimate nouns, which name everything else. In the accusative singular, the difference matters only for masculine nouns:

• A masculine noun for a thing keeps its dictionary form: Я ба́чу стіл. (I see the table.)
• A masculine noun for a person or animal takes the genitive form: Я ба́чу бра́та. (I see my brother.) Бра́та is also the genitive, of my brother.

This is set out in the orthography: all masculine nouns for living beings have an accusative that is the same as the genitive [src: pravopys-2026, §84]. So once you know a noun’s genitive, you also know its accusative.

Plural endings

In the plural, the rule for people and animals covers all three genders [src: pravopys-2026, §78, §91, §100]:

• Nouns for things have an accusative plural that is the same as the nominative plural.
• Nouns for people and animals have an accusative plural that is the same as the genitive plural.

For some animals, especially domestic ones, the form like the nominative is also used: ко́ней and less often ко́ні (horses) [src: pravopys-2026, §91, note]. Young animals such as кошеня́та (kittens) have both forms too: кошеня́т or кошеня́та [src: pravopys-2026, §99].

After verbs

Most verbs that have a direct object take the accusative. These are some of the most common ones:

The examples mean: I see the sea. He’s reading a newspaper. She loves music. I have a sister. We’re buying bread. I’m looking for a job. We’re listening to the radio. Mum is drinking coffee.

Notice that some English verbs need a preposition where Ukrainian has none: listen to the radio is слу́хати ра́діо, and look for a job is шука́ти робо́ту. Ра́діо never changes, so you can’t see the accusative here, but it is still there.

Not every verb takes the accusative. Телефонува́ти (to phone) and допомага́ти (to help) take the dative, for example. When you learn a verb, learn the case that comes after it.

Prepositions with the accusative

These prepositions take the accusative. Several of them can also take other cases, with a different meaning [src: goroh-dictionary].

The examples mean: We’re going to Ukraine. I’m going to a concert. Thank you for your help. It’s a film about Kyiv. We’re crossing the road.

Direction: в/у and на

With the accusative, в (у) and на show where someone or something is going. With the locative they show where it is. Common prepositions explains this in detail, and when to write у or в.

Time: за, через and на

These three prepositions are often used with a length of time [src: goroh-dictionary].

За can also mean in in the sense of “after a time”: both за годи́ну and че́рез годи́ну can mean an hour from now. For the time something takes, use за.

Other meanings of за and через

Days of the week: у понеділок

To say on Monday, on Tuesday and so on, use у (в) with the accusative of the day [src: ukma-ukrainian-foreign-language; goroh-dictionary]. Masculine days look the same as the dictionary form. Feminine days take -у or -ю.

In a sentence, choose у or в by the sounds around it, as on the prepositions page: Я працю́ю в понеді́лок. (I work on Monday.) But у before в: Ми зустрі́лися у вівто́рок. (We met on Tuesday.)

Two related expressions:

• Every day is щодня́. This is an adverb, not a case form, so it never changes: Я чита́ю щодня́. (I read every day.)
• The whole day, the whole year use the accusative with no preposition: Він працюва́в ці́лий день. (He worked all day.) The word for whole changes too: ці́лу ніч (all night). Adjective endings are covered on the adjective cases page.

Common mistakes and limits