Learn to recognise and use masculine nouns in nominative and accusative case.
Masculine nouns typically end in consonant or have a NIL ending in nominative case e.g. stol (chair), uspeh (success), užitek (pleasure), virus (virus), zajtrk (breakfast), sladkor (sugar), sladoled (ice cream), planet (planet).
In rare cases, they can end in -o or -e (avto, finale).
All nouns where the natural gender of the subject is obvious e.g. father, brother, uncle etc. are masculine.
The accusative case is used when an object or a person (a noun) is directly receiving the action or is the object of an action.
For example "Jaz vidim avto" (I see a car) - the object "car" is receiving the action of "seeing".
We can help determine the case by using the following questions:
| Case | Helper Question | Example |
| Nominative | Who or what (is here)? | Mama je tu. (Mother is here) |
| Genitive | Who or what (is not here)? | Mame ni tu. (Mother is not here) |
| Dative | To whom or to what (do we give)? | Mami dam darilo. (I give gift to mother.) |
| Accusative | Whom or what (do we see)? | Jaz vidim mamo. (I see mother) |
| Locative | Next to whom or what (is)? | Pri mami je otrok. (The child is with the mother.) |
| Instrumental | With whom or with what (is)? | Z mamo je oče. |
Further examples of when accusative is used:
| Helper question | Example | Translation |
| Whom or what do I see? | Vidim očeta. | I see father. |
| What do I eat? | Jem zajtrk. | I'm eating breakfast. |
| What do I read? | Berem časopis. | I'm reading a newspaper. |
| What do I have? | Imam brata. | I have a brother. |
Most masculine nouns are declensed by using 1st masculine noun declension paradigm. A specific rule for masculine nouns which use 1st paradigm is also that there are different endings for persons and animals versus inanimate objects.
Here are some examples:
Persons and animals
| Nominative | Accusative | Translation |
| oče- | očeta | father |
| brat- | brata | brother |
| stric- | strica | uncle |
| gospod- | gospoda | gentleman |
| prijatelj- | prijatelja | friend |
| nasprotnik- | nasprotnika | opponent |
Inanimate objects
| Nominative | Accusative | Translation |
| korak- | korak- | step |
| stol- | stol- | chair |
| trebuh- | trebuh- | tummy/belly |
| aparat- | aparat- | device |
| hotel- | hotel- | hotel |