Cases and prepositions

As we discussed before, if a noun is used after a preposition, it must be either in accusative, or one of the oblique cases (genitive, dative, instrumental or prepositional case). At first, I intended to include the following information in the descriptions of each case, however, I made up my mind to make a special chapter out of that, because some tricks get visible only when you compare the cases.

So, let's start from a simple thing - table of cases and preposition. You can find it everywhere. Here I publish a variant that seems to me full and not so much confusing at the same time.

Cases	Prepositions
Genitive	без, ввиду, вдоль, вместо, вне, внутри, внутрь, возле, впереди, вследствие, вокруг, для, до, из-за, из-под, кроме, между, мимо, напротив, насчет, около, от, от, относительно, помимо, после, посреди, посредством, позади, после, против, ради, с, сверх, свыше, снаружи, среди, у
Dative	благодаря, вопреки, к, по
Accusative	в, за, на, про, сквозь, через
Instrumental case	за, между, над, перед, под, с
Prepositional case	в, на, о, по, при

However, I feel, some points need to be clarified. For example, several prepositions (в, за, на, с) may be used with different cases. How to choose the right one? In a moment we'll be discussing that.

We can start with two prepositions - "в" and "на". They are pretty similar. So, "в" and "на" with accusative are used when you describe the direction ("утром я иду на работу, мой сын идет в школу, а жена - на почту"). They are used with the prepositional case when you describe a location ("я на работе, моя жена на почте, а мой сын - в школе").  Does it mean that every time we use a verb of movement, we need the accusative? Not necessarily. We'll be discussing this later (when talking about verbs of movement), but I would like to emphasize it now, it's pretty important. This cases with the accusative are used when you cross some (real or imaginary) border. It may be a door of your home or any other building, square boundary etc. This also can be an edge of something (if you put something somewhere): "я кладу книгу в/на коробку", but "книга лежит в/на коробке". The main point here is, someone goes from one place to another (or puts something somewhere) intentionally. In most of other cases we use the prepositional case. Using the concepts of 'location' and 'direction', you can also understand such expressions as "я прочел в книге, что..." (prepositional case), "я заглянул в словарь" (accusative). 

The preposition "за" follows the same concept: it requires a noun in the instrumental case, when the situation can be described using the concept of 'location', and the accusative, when the appropriate concept is 'direction'. However, here we face one more problem: the preposition "за" has one more meaning. You can find it in the expressions like "я пришёл за деньгами", "моя жена поехала за сыном", "я заеду за тобой в пять", "пожалуйста, сходи в магазин за кока-колой". I cannot find a better translation than 'to pick someone or something up/to buy or to get something" (perhaps, you can?). In this case, as you may have been noticed, we use the instrumental case.

The preposition "с" has quite a spectrum of meanings. Don't be afraid - we'll learn them step by step. First, the preposition "с" may be translated as 'with'. Be careful here - 'with' is not always translated as "c". If you mention a tool you do or make something with, you do not need a preposition at all, the best option here is just to use a noun in the instrumental case ("я режу хлеб ножом, а моя подруга рисует картину кистью"). Sometimes you also need a noun in the instrumental case when you mention materials etc. ("мой друг художник; он пишет картины маслом"). We'll discuss it one more time later, though. In the contexts like "я иду гулять с собакой", "я давно дружу с Джоном", "я иду из магазина с большой сумкой", "мы жили с Юлей в одной комнате в общежитии", "я говорил с Андреем Павловичем по телефону", "вчера я встречалась с Энтони" when you highlight that you have (had, will have) something or someone with you or have someone as a speaking partner, as a friend etc., the preposition 'with' can be translated by "с", and in this case you need a noun in the instrumental case.

However, this preposition can be also translated to Russian as 'from'/'off' ("мой сын катается с горки на санках", "я возвращаюсь с выставки", "я вернусь с дачи в воскресенье", "я прихожу с работы в восемь часов вечера") and even since ("моя жена работает в крупной компании с прошлого года"). Though we're talking about nouns here, I can't help mentioning that the preposition "c" may be used in the this sense also with numbers ("я живу в этом доме с две тысячи первого [года]"). Here we use a noun in the genitive case.

So, these are the main and the most useful combinations of a preposition and a noun in the accusative and oblique cases. There are some other combinations, though, which may be discussed from time to time in my blog. So stay tuned!