Accusative animate masculine adjectives (-ого, -его)

When a direct object is an animate masculine noun (a person or an animal), the adjectives and pronouns describing it take special accusative endings.

Animate Masculine Endings: -ого and -его

• Adjectives ending in -ый or -ой change to -ого (e.g., добрый → доброго).
• Adjectives ending in -ий typically change to -его (e.g., лучший → лучшего), though after some consonants they take -ого (e.g., строгий → строгого).

Possessive and demonstrative pronouns change to match this pattern:

• мой → моего
• твой → твоего
• наш → нашего
• ваш → вашего
• этот → этого

Pronunciation tip: In all -ого and -его endings, the letter г is pronounced like an English v.

Notice how the adjectives and pronouns in the following sentences all take the -ого or -его endings because they describe the masculine animate person or pet receiving the action.