In Russian, the word “both” can be translated as “оба” or “обе” depending on the context. “Оба” is used to refer to two nouns that are of the same masculine gender, while “обе” is used to refer to two nouns that are of feminine genders. If you need to unite two words with the different gender, you would always use the masculine form of the word BOTH.
For example, if you wanted to say “Both houses are big,” you would say “Оба дома большие.” Here, “оба” is used because “дома” is in the plural of “дом” and is the masculine gender.
If you wanted to say, “Both the book and the pen are on the table,” you would say, “Обе книга и ручка на столе.” Here, “обе” is used because “книга” and “ручка” are both feminine gender words.
BUT if you need to say ” Both my father and my mother loved me very much”, you would need to use the masculine form since at least one word isn’t feminine (отец – dad).
Оба и отец, и мать очень меня любили.
This poor cat’s been trying to understand the Russian cases and genders 😁😁😁
Practice makes perfect us to get used to this craziness.
Let’s start with the video that explains it all in a more visual way. Or almost all since the Russian language is something that can never be fully learned and explained.
Now let’s practice this grammar together with our interactive exercises 😃👌
Match the words BOTH in Nominative and Accusative cases.
Let’s start with the simplest forms of the word BOTH – for the Nominative and Accusative cases. Here all the options are Оба / Обе.
Translation exercise
Now let’s see how these words act in the sentences with different cases.
All the cases of the word BOTH – exercise
Russian grammar can be tricky, but here’s a light-hearted joke about it:
Why did the Russian noun go to the doctor? Because it had a case of declensions!
It is a play on words with the word “case” which have a double meaning , on one side it refer to the grammatical cases in Russian and the other side as a medical condition.
Please take this as a joke and not to make light of the difficulties that come with learning a new language and it’s grammar, which is always challenging.