Gender in Russian

Russian grammar: Gender in Russian

One of the main differences between Russian and English is the fact that every Russian noun belongs to one of the 3 genders: masculine, feminine or neuter.

Knowing the gender of a noun is important as it affects the endings the noun takes in different cases.

It’s quite easy to figure out the gender when we are talking about people, but what to do when the noun is inanimate? The answer is: look at the word’s ending.

Feminine nouns

The feminine nouns end in -А, -Я or -Ь.

Examples:

– кни́га [knée-ga] – book
– неде́ля [nee-dyé-lya] – week
– ночь [noch’] – night

Neuter nouns

The neuter nouns end in -O, -Е. Examples:

– о́блако [ób-la-ka] – cloud
– зна́ние [zná-nee-ye] – knowledge
– со́лнце [són-tse] – sun

Masculine nouns

The masculine nouns often have no ending, i.e. the last letter is a consonant. Sometimes they end on -Ь (as the feminine nouns, do not get confused). Examples:

– день [dyen’] – day
– год [got] – year

Exceptions

There is also a number of exceptions. For example, some words are masculine despite their endings:

– пáпа [pá-pa] – dad
– дя́дя [dyá-dya] – uncle
– ко́фе [kó-fye] – coffee

These words are neuter despite ending in -Я:

– вре́мя [vryé-mya] – time
– и́мя [ée-mya] – name

Some words can be masculine and feminine at the same time:

– колле́га [kal-lyé-ga] – colleague
– копу́ша [ka-pú-sha] – slowpoke

Now, you are familiar with the gender in Russian and know how to determine a gender of a Russian noun. Practice all these words with the audio recording. And come back to learn Russian in the next lesson!

The offline version of this lesson is available here

• 006. Russian personal pronouns
• 008. Plural in Russian