Quite a few English nouns ending in a consonant have corresponding cognates in Russian. The confusing thing is that these English nouns end in consonants while their Russian counterparts are feminine and end in “-a”.
When you hear them in phrases, you might think they are in their nominative forms. The following corresponding pairs look normal to English speaker, don’t they?
problem – проблем
program - программ
minute - минут
group - групп
However, you should remember that Russian “программ”, “минут”, “планет”, “проблем”, “групп” etc. are not the nominative but genitive plural forms. They are often used after “нет”, “не́сколько”, “мно́го”, “мало”, “недоста́точно”, “доста́точно”, “ско́лько”.
You might hear these words in such phrases as:
нет пробле́м = no problem
мно́го програ́мм = a lot of programs
ско́лько мину́т = How many minutes?
мно́го кома́нд = a lot of commands (teams)
не́сколько причи́н = several reasons
Here is a list of these confusing nouns:
пробле́ма = problem
програ́мма = program
мину́та = minute
секу́нда = second
па́ника = panic
гру́ппа = group
причи́на = reason
нау́ка = science
плане́та = planet
схе́ма = scheme
форма = form
кома́нда = command
грамма́тика = grammar
диагра́мма = diagram
инфогра́фика = info-graphics
олимпиа́да = Olympiads
If you are interested in learning more about the genitive case, you can watch these videos.
