Russian personal pronouns
In this lesson, we will learn Russian personal pronouns.
Listen to the audio and repeat after it:
Pronoun | Pronunciation | Translation |
---|---|---|
я | [ya] | I |
ты | [ty] | you (informal and singular) |
он | [on] | he |
она́ | [a-ná] | she |
оно́ | [a-nó] | it |
мы | [my] | we |
вы | [vy] | you (formal or plural) |
они́ | [a-née] | they |
Keep in mind, that I in Russian is written with the lowercase.
Formal and informal ways of addressing people
There are two ways of addressing people in Russian depending on who you talk to.
If you are talking to your friend, relative, someone younger than you, or somebody you are close with, you can use the informal tone and call him or her ты when addressing directly.
But if you talk to your boss, teacher, a stranger, or somebody older than you, you should use the formal tone and call the person вы (plural form of ты).
These are the basic and the most important rules of politeness in Russia: using ты wrongly can push people away from you and give a bad impression about you.
Sometimes you might see that the polite Вы is written with the uppercase, while the informal plural вы is written with the lowercase. It is a common practice but not a rule. When you address people politely in a written form, you can write вы with the lowercase, it will not be a mistake.
That’s it for today. We hope you enjoy learning Russian with us. Listen to the audio track and practice the pronunciation of Russian personal pronouns.
The offline version of this lesson is available here
Start the quiz-
Question # 1
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Question # 2How do you address somebody in a formal way?
- ты
- мы
- они
- вы
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Question # 3
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Question # 4
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Question # 5Translate to English:ты
- you (informal)
- you (formal)
- we
- I
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Correct answers: 0 (0%)
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Question # 6
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Question # 7
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Question # 8How would you address your friend in Russian?
- он
- ны
- вы
- ты
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Question # 9
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Question # 10Translate to English:мы
- we
- you (informal)
- you (formal)
- you (plural)
Answered: 0 out of 10
Correct answers: 0 (0%)
Does Russian I (Я) have gender ? I mean does it make any difference in the verb ending if the speaker is male or female?
Hi Negin,
Not always. For adjectives that describe Я it does always. However for verbs, it is only important in the Past tense and participles. For the Present and Future tenses, for the Command form, it makes no difference.
I like this way of teaching Russain language. It is so simple.
hi
i want to learn Russian step by step
Have a look. Here are step-by-step lessons