The nominative case is used to indicate the subject of a sentence. It is also used for other nouns in the sentence which give more information about the subject. As it is the dictionary form for nouns and adjectives, you should memorize nouns and adjectives in their nominative case forms.
Я иду в театр. | I am going to the theater. |
Книга на столе. | The book is on the table. |
Вот дом. | There is the house. |
Это моя ручка. | This is my pen. |
Мой брат - инженер. | My brother is an engineer. |
В институте работают американские физики. | American physicists work in the institute. |
Because Russian has cases, word order in a sentence is less important than it is in English. The subject [that noun plus its modifiers in the nominative case] can come at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of the sentence. Knowing the nominative case endings for nouns and adjectives will help you find the subject of the sentence more quickly.
Adjectives are linked to their nouns by their endings. The adjective may stand in front of, after, or at a distance from the noun it modifies. You can always find the adjective which modifies a noun by looking for the one whose ending matches in gender, number, and case that of the noun.
Это Белый дом.
Она учительница хорошая, опытная.
Русский язык очень интересный, но трудный.