Russian qualitative adjectives have a special short form used exclusively as the predicate of a sentence. In spoken Russian, these forms express immediate states, readiness, health, or personal evaluations. They link directly to the subject without a present-tense verb to be, allowing you to describe how someone is feeling or whether something is ready right now.

To build a short-form adjective, start from the basic adjective stem. For a masculine subject, use the bare stem with zero ending, such as готов for a man who is ready. For a feminine subject, add the ending A, giving готова. For a neuter subject, add the ending O, giving готово. For any plural subject, add the ending Y, giving готовы.