7.4 - The accusative case

Principal uses of the accusative

As the direct object of a verb, for example:

To express "how long (for)", for example:

Я вас чекав цілу годину!

I waited one whole hour for you!

With prepositions, including крізь, про, через, по (also with у/в and на when these indicate movement to a place); for example:

Поліція шукає злодія, який проходить крізь стіни.	The police are looking for a thief who goes through walls.
Розкажіть про свою поїздку.	Tell us about your trip.
Через дорогу від дому – магазин.	Across the road from our house there is a shop.

For an overview of the accusative of masculine, feminine and neuter nouns see the charts in Unit 6.

For masculine singular nouns it is important to make the distinction between animate (mainly referring to people and animals) and inanimate nouns.

Masculine animate nouns in the accusative have the same ending as the genitive, for example:

Ірина відвідала брата.

Iryna visited her brother.

Masculine inanimate nouns in the accusative have the same form as the nominative, for example:

Ви вже бачили цей фільм?

Have you seen this film?

This rule does not apply to feminine singular nouns, which have a separate accusative ending (usually -у/-ю).

As neuter nouns are, by definition, inanimate (with just a few exceptions in Ukrainian), they have the same endings as the nominative, for example:

Це – моє місто.	This is my town.
Ви відвідали моє місто?	Have you visited my town?

In the plural the animate/inanimate distinction applies to both masculine and feminine.