Endings of Adjectives

Adjectives have three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) and two numbers (singular, plural). The endings in the plural are the same for all genders. Adjectives are declined; they agree in number, gender, and case with the noun which they modify.

Endings, Singular

	MASCULINE		FEMININE		NEUTER
HARD	-ый or -ой	красный большой	-ая	красная	-ое	красное
SOFT	-ий	синий	-яя	синяя	-ее	синее

Stress: The masculine ending -ый is never stressed: красный, новый. The ending -ой is always stressed: большой, дорогой. Soft adjectives are never stressed on the ending:  летний, средний.

 Stems in -н

In soft adjectives, the stem ends in -н. Most of these adjectives refer to time or place.

LIST OF CURRENTLY USED SOFT ADJECTIVES

GROUP  1   (Time)

утренний	morning		весенний	spring
вечерний	evening		летний	summer
ранний	early		осенний	autumn, fall
поздний	late		зимний	wintry
завтрашний	tomorrow's		прежний	previous, former
теперешний	present, current		древний	ancient, antique, old
тогдашний	of that time		прошлогодний	last year's
давний	ancient, old		трёхлетний (четырёхлетний, etc.)	three-year (four-year, etc.)

 GROUP 2   (Place) 

здешний	local		дальний	distant
верхний	upper		внутренний	inner, internal
нижний	lower		внешний	outer, external
передний	front		крайний	extreme
средний	middle; average		соседний	neighboring
задний	rear		последний	last

  GROUP 3   (Various meanings)

синий	blue
домашний	home; domestic
лишний	extra, superfluous
искренний	sincere
посторонний	alien, strange

Examples : 

вечерняя газета	evening paper
дальний родственник	distant relative
лишнее слово	extra word
домашние животные	domestic animals

Mixed Adjectives

The so-called "mixed adjectives" have both hard and soft endings. Actually, adjectives ending in  ж, ч, ш,  щ, such as свежий  (fresh), горячий  (hot), хороший   (good),  общий  (general,  common),  are soft. Adjectives ending in г, к, х, such as строгий (strict), русский (Russian), тихий (quiet), are hard.  The endings in хорошая, русский, etc., simply follow the "spelling rule" (see "Pronunciation").

Plural of Adjectives

As mentioned above, there is no distinction in the plural of adjectives as regards gender. Hard adjectives end in -ые; soft in -ие.

Hard:   новые заводы, фабрики, здания.

Soft:    здешние магазины, дороги, поля.