• Only a short form of an adjective can have a dependent form. For example, Моя́ страна́ бога́тая тала́нтливыми людьми́. - WRONG! Моя́ страна́ бога́та тала́нтливыми людьми́. - My land is rich in talented people. • The full form mostly decribes a constant situation, whereas the short one describle a temporary condition. For example, Лицо́ его́ бы́ло споко́йно. - His face was unworried. У него́ споко́йное лицо́. - He has a calm face. (That is a bit subtle point, 'cause I believe I can find some phrases that don not reflect that rule. So, don't you rely on that too much.) • The short form reflects some feature in a more "categorical" way. Он хи́трый. - He is cunning. Он хитёр! - What a cunning person he is! ---- I've got all the material from here, you can look through it. Though it is Russian site. http://videotutor-rusyaz.ru/uchenikam/teoriya/37-upotreblenieprilagatelnyhvrechi.html That is an answer to that question at here: http://www.italki.com/entry/307401

Концы прилагательных --- properly --- Окончания прилагательных

Excerpt from history of russian full adjectives Initially slavic languages had the short adjectives only (as I know bulgarian language still have only short form adj). Old russian had special pronouns that had the oblique case only: и [him, muscl], я [her] and е [him, neut]. To make a subject definite they used the combination [short adj] + [pronoun]. For example, "он добр и" [he is good himself]; "она добра я"; "оно добро е". During centuries the adjective and pronoun merged and resulted in so called full adjective. In colloquial speech the full adjectives are more popular nowadays. I prefer the short ones :) That's why there's almost no difference between them in russian.

Short guidelines to use :) 1. If in doubt then use the full adjective 2. If in english you want to say: [subj] is/are [adj], then you can use a short adjective in russian 3. Short adjective cannot be used in front of a noun because it holds predicative meaning corresponding to the english [to be] [adj]. 4. Colloquial russian tends to use full adjectives

A full adjective is used to qualify a noun (alike english language), e.g. *beautiful* girl, *good* book, *smart* guy {красивая девочка, хорошая книга, умный мальчик} Short adjective is almost the same BUT have a "smell" of a verb. In other words a short adjective has a *predicative* meaning which implies *it cannot be used* as a full adjective *in front of* a noun. Transalating a short adjective to english we must use the verb 'to be'. *In the most cases* there's no difference in meaning but speaker's preferences: мальчик — умный/мальчик умён/boy is smart; дом был чистым/дом был чист/ house was clean. Лицо его было спокойным/Лицо его было спокойно :) эта страна была богатой талантливыми людьми/эта страна была богата талантливыми людьми :) The full adjective symbolizes something permanent or unchanging. By contrast, short adjectives describe something transient, fleeting, or temporary. Я — счастливый [always, in general]. Я счастлив [right now] Nevertheless you can use a full adjective here: Я счастливый сегодня/я выгляжу счастливым/я счастлив [i looks happy] And vice versa: Я всегда счастлив :)