When to use the accusative case to discuss time in Russian?

In Russian, we often use the accusative case to discuss time: to describe the time of an action (when?), its frequency (how often?), or its duration (how long?). However, sometimes you will need to use another case, like the prepositional case, instead. For example:

• accusative

  Давай встретимся в пять часов.

  daVAY fstrYEteemsya f pyat cheeSOF

  Let’s meet at five o’clock.

  → accusative with an exact clock time
• prepositional

  В августе он был в Греции.

  v AVgoostye on byl v GRYEtsii

  In August, he was in Greece.

  → prepositional with months

In this post, we will go through the most important cases in which you will use the accusative case (and not another case!) to discuss time and frequency in Russian. We’ll also go through some common expressions that use the accusative case of time. When do you think you’ll master it? Hopefully soon!

Before you read the rest of this post, you may want to review how to form the accusative case in Russian. But here’s what’s important for this discussion:

• When discussing words for times or frequencies, the accusative form will be the same as the nominative form (dictionary form) if the noun/adjective in question is masculine singular, neuter singular, or plural.

• Only feminine singular words for times have a different form different in the nominative vs. accusative:

  Feminine Singular
  Nominative	Accusative
  суббота sooBOta Saturday	субботу sooBOtoo (on) Saturday
  неделя neeDYElya a week	неделю neeDYElyu (for) a week

  Feminine adjectives will also have different nominative and accusative forms! For example:

  целая неделя

  TSElaya neeDYElya

  entire week

  → nominative

  целую неделю

  TSElooyu neeDYElyu

  entire week

  → accusative

To indicate when something happens, the accusative case is used in the following contexts:

• After the preposition в[v](at/on), if you are making reference to a specific time, you will use the accusative case ONLY in the three contexts below. In other cases where you use в to discuss time, you’ll use the prepositional case of time instead (we saw an example of this in the introduction!).

  • Exact time, expressed in hours/minutes (as in “o’clock”):

    accusative

    Давай встретимся в пять часов.

    daVAY fstrYEteemsya f pyat cheeSOF

    Let’s meet at five o’clock.

  • Days of the week or parts of the day:

    • У меня выходные в субботу и воскресенье.

      oo meeNYA vykhadNYye f sooBOtoo ee vaskreeSYEnye

      My days off are on Saturday and Sunday.

    • Я не мог уснуть в ночь перед Рождеством в предвкушении чуда.

      ya nee mok zasNOOT v noch PYEreet razhdeestVOM f preedvkooSHYEniee CHOOda

      I could not sleep on the night before Christmas in anticipation of a miracle.

  • Time expressed with generic words like время[VRYEmya](time) or период[peeREEat](period):

    • Город оживился во время праздников.

      GOrat azheeVEElsya va VRYEmya PRAzneekaf

      The city livened up at the time of (during) holidays.

    • В период подготовки к выставке мы сделали немало работы.

      f peeREEat padgaTOfkee k VYstafkye my sDYElali neeMAla raBOty

      During the period of preparing for the exhibition, we have done a lot of work.

• When the preposition через[CHYEryes](in) is used to discuss time, it is always followed by the accusative case:

  • Я тебе перезвоню через час.

    ya teeBYE pirizvaNYU CHYEryes chas

    I will call you back in an hour.

  • Результаты придут через неделю.

    reezoolTAty preeDOOT CHYEryez neeDYElyu

    The results will arrive in a week.

• When something happened some time ago, you can use the accusative case, often with a word like назад[naZAt](back(ward), ago).

  Он уехал в командировку в Самару неделю назад.

  on ooYEkhal f kamandiROFkoo f saMAroo neeDYElyu naZAt

  He went on a business trip to Samara a week ago.

The accusative case is also used when we talk about how often something happens, in the following contexts:

• When translating expressions like “once a day” or “twice a year” you’ll use the accusative both for the number expression (once, twice, thrice), and for the time measurement word (...a day, …a week, …a year). For example:

  number expression

  accusative

  в[v](in)

  time measurement

  accusative

  раз в день

  ras v dyen

  once a day

  два раза в неделю

  dva RAza v neeDYElyu

  two times a year

  три раза в год

  tre RAza v got

  three times a year

  Here’s an example of one of these expressions used in a sentence:

  Я хожу в кино где-то раз в месяц.

  ya khaZHOO f keeNO GDYEta ras v MYEsits

  I go to the movies about once a month.

• When translating expressions like “every day” or “every morning” using the adjective каждый[KAzhdyi](every), both the time noun and the word каждый itself are in the accusative case.

  • У нас почти каждый день гроза и дождь.

    oo nas pachTEE KAzhdyi dyen graZA ee DOzht

    We have lightning and rain almost every day.

  • У тебя каждую неделю будет такое расписание?

    oo teeBYA KAzhdooyu neeDYElyu BOOdeet taKOye raspeeSAneeye

    Will you have this schedule every week?

  Notice that the form of каждый depends on the gender of the following word! Here are the accusative forms of каждый:

  Gender	Accusative Form
  Masculine	каждый[KAzhdyi]
  Feminine	каждую[KAzhdooyu]
  Neuter	каждое[KAzhdaye]
  Plural	каждые[KAzhdyye]

The accusative case is also used when we talk about how long a situation or action lasts for, in the following contexts:

• You can express that something lasted for a span of time just by describing the span of time in the accusative case, without using a preposition like “for.” For example:

  accusative

  Секундочку, пожалуйста, подождите.

  seeKOOndachkoo paZHAloosta padaZHDEEtye

  One second, please, hold.

  → секундочку is diminutive of секунду[seeKOOndo](a second) and means exactly the same thing.

  Я уже неделю болею.

  ya ooZHYE neeDYElyu baLYEyu

  I’ve been sick (for) a week already.

• You can also put the accusative duration after the preposition на[na](for):

  Можешь взять отпуск на месяц?

  MOzhesh vzyat Otpoosk na MYEsits

  Can you take a vacation for a month?

  Important

  When do you need to include на[na](for) with a duration, and when can you leave it out? It depends on the verb.

  • With a verb like болеть[baLYET](to be sick), which implies duration, you don’t need to use a preposition.

    Я уже неделю болею.

    ya ooZHYE neeDYElyu baLYEyu

    I’ve been sick (for) a week already.

  • But with a verb like взять[vzyat](take)), which does not imply any duration, you need to use the preposition на.

    Можешь взять отпуск на месяц?

    MOzhesh vzyat Otpoosk na MYEsits

    Can you take a vacation for a month?

• We will also often describe duration by using adjectives like весь[ves](all, entire) or целый[TSYElyi](entire) before accusative time nouns. Notice that the adjective is accusative too!

  • Я целую неделю дурака валял.

    ya TSYElooyu neeDYElyu dooraKA vaLYAL

    I’ve been fooling around all week.

  • Жарко. Душно. И так всё лето.

    ZHARka DOOshna ee tak fsyo LYEta

    Hot. Stuffy. And it is like that all summer.

• You can also sometimes describe duration using accusative time nouns and Russian ordinal numerals:

  Я уже второй месяц не работаю.

  ya ooZHYE ftaROY MYEsyats nee raBOtayu

  It’s been two months since I stopped working.

  lit. I already have a second month not working.

• You can use the preposition за[za] + time frame (accusative) to mean that something happens:

  • “within” a certain time frame:

    • У нас уже ребёнок родился за это время.

      oo nas ooZHE reeBYOnak raDEElsya za Eta VRYEmya

      We had a baby within this time.

    • Мы хорошо отдохнули за время отпуска.

      my kharaSHO adakhNOOlee za VRYEmya Otpooska

      We rested well within the time of our vacation.

  • a certain amount of time “in advance” of something else:

    Нужно заказывать за сутки.

    NOOzha zaKAzyvat za SOOtki

    You need to book 24 hours in advance.

Since time is such an important concept in our lives, the accusative case with time is also used in set expressions. All of these expressions are used in more formal contexts.

In this post, we discussed how to talk about time using the accusative case. Here’s what you should take away.

• The accusative case is often used to indicate the time of an action (when), the frequency of an action (how often), or the duration of an action.

• Other cases can also be used to discuss time, frequency, and duration → make sure to consider the context and the words that are involved!

I hope you enjoyed the post! Check out the accusative of time activities at the bottom of the page to get some additional practice!