The verb быть is also used in sentences with predicate adjectives. You may recall that in copular sentences (“to be” type sentences), the subject is the thing you are talking about. The predicate is everything else:

There are two types of adjectives in Russian: long form adjectives, which are the vast majority of adjectives, and short form adjectives.

An adjective that is in the predicate is, not surprisingly, called a predicate adjective. Long form predicate adjectives in Russian normally occur in the instrumental case. The only exception is when it is directly a part of a present tense is/am/are phrase, in which case the predicate is in the nominative case:

A short form adjective in the predicate will always be in the nominative case:

Of course feminine, neuter, and plural forms are also possible:

The verb быть is also used in sentences with predicate nouns. What is a predicate? In copular sentences (“to be” type sentences), the subject is the thing you are talking about. The predicate is everything else:

In Russian the most common verb for the “to be” concept is быть. It is imperfective in terms of meaning, but it is unique in that it is the only imperfective verb to have a simple future form:

Although быть has the present tense third person singular form есть and the present tense third person plural form суть, these are used only in specialized contexts. They aren't normally used to say things like “She is pretty” or “He was in Zvenigorod.” Instead you just leave the verb out in the present tense. Examples:

One other verb that is used to express “to ask” is задавать/задать, literally “to pose.” It is used in conjunction with the noun вопрос, which means question. It is conjugated like this:

The verb combines with the noun вопрос in the accusative case, and the person being queried shows up in the dative case:

The quote by Berkeley is not very well known in Russia and does not yet have a generally accepted translation. It is so well known in the US that it spawns regular parodies, the most famous of which is “If a man speaks in the forest and there is no woman to hear him, is he still wrong?” That one has become so iconic that it is reproduced on t-shirts regularly.

Note: the stress on the perfective past tense forms sometimes varies from the stress here indicated.

The verb pair спрашивать/спросить means “to ask” in the sense of “to ask (a question).” It never means “to ask someone for something.” It is conjugated like this:

The person who is asked the question shows up in the accusative case. The question that is asked most commonly shows up as indirect speech in a separate clause introduced by a comma:

But of course the question clause may also contain direct speech:

The verb is also used if a person answers the phone and wants to know who the caller wants to speak with. Although the phrase essentially means “Who is asking for him/her/them,” in a good translation we will paraphrase it with the standard polite equivalents in English:

One warning about this verb: it cannot be used in conjunction with the noun вопрос, which means a question. That is you cannot say «Он спросил вопрос» in the sense of “He asked a question.” For that you must use the verb задавать/задать, which we will discuss tomorrow.