The Preposition "с" (From / Off of)
In Russian, prepositions of destination have strict counterparts for prepositions of source. If you head "to" or "onto" a location or surface using the preposition на, you must indicate coming "from" or "off of" that same place using the preposition с.
Whenever you use с to express source or origin, the noun that follows it must take the Genitive case.
| Drops of water fell from the roof. | Капли воды упали с крыши. |
| The boy climbed down from the tree. | Мальчик слез с дерева. |
| The wind is blowing from the sea, it is even cold in the room. | Ветер дует с моря, в комнате даже холодно. |
The Pronunciation Variant "со"
To make pronunciation smoother, Russian adds an extra vowel to the preposition before certain tricky consonant clusters. The preposition с changes to со when the following word begins with multiple consonants, especially those starting with с, з, or ш (like стол or шкаф).
| from / off of (a surface) | со |
This variant functions exactly the same way and also requires the Genitive case.
| Every day I wipe the dust off the table. | Каждый день я вытираю пыль со стола. |
| The child is slowly getting off the chair. | Ребёнок медленно слезает со стула. |
| He quickly wiped the dust off the cabinet. | Он быстро вытер пыль со шкафа. |
Action Verbs
You will frequently see с and со paired with verbs that describe removing things from surfaces or descending, such as вытирать (to wipe), срывать (to pick / tear off), or слезать (to climb down / get off).
| He picked a green apple from the tree. | Он сорвал зелёное яблоко с дерева. |
| The wind is tearing leaves off this tree. | Ветер срывает листья с этого дерева. |