Where are you from? in Russian

Today we will learn how to ask “Where are you from?” in Russian and how to answer such a question.

Questions

To simply ask a person where he or she is from, use one of the following questions:

Ты отку́да? / Отку́да ты?
Where are you from? (informal)

Вы отку́да? / Отку́да вы?
Where are you from? (formal)

If you want to ask specifically where the person was born, you can ask it this way:

Отку́да ты ро́дом? (informal)
Отку́да вы ро́дом? (formal)

This question can be literally translated as “Where is your family/clan from?”.

Answers

Now, let’s look at the possible answers.

You have a few options answering such a question. For example, you can say: “I am from …”:

Я из Фра́нции.
I’m from France.

Я из Испа́нии.
I’m from Spain.

Я из Ита́лии.
I’m from Italy.

Я из Герма́нии.
I’m from Germany.

Я из Соединённых Шта́тов / Я из Аме́рики.
I’m from US / I’m from America.

Я из Еги́пта.
I’m from Egypt.

Pay attention that the name of the country in this case is used in the Genitive case.

In most cases, when the name of a country ends in -а or -ия, it is feminine. When it ends on a consonant, it is masculine. Some country names, such as, for example, Morocco and Chile don’t change their endings in different cases. You can find the list of some of the countries and their Genitive form at the end of the lesson.

To continue, there is another option to answer “Where are you from?”. You can say “I am French / Spanish / American”. In this case, the answer depends on whether you are male or female:

Я францу́з. (m)
Я францу́женка. (f)
I am French.

Я испа́нец. (m)
Я испа́нка. (f)
I am Spanish.

Я америка́нец. (m)
Я америка́нка. (f)
I am American.

Я брита́нец. (m)
Я брита́нка. (f)
I’m British.

Я италья́нец. (m)
Я италья́нка. (f)
I’m Italian.

Я не́мец. (m)
Я не́мка. (f)
I’m German.

Я египтя́нин. (m)
Я египтя́нка. (f)
I’m Egyptian.

Russian names of some of the countries

Below is the list of names some of the countries in Russian.

There are many countries in the world, to make the list not too long we only included the countries where most of our visitors come from.

If your country is not listed and you want to know the name of you country in Russian, don’t hesitate to ask us in the comments!

And this is it for this lesson. Stick with us and we will continue to learn Russian in the next lesson!

The offline version of this lesson is available here

• 012. How old are you? in Russian
• 014. Meeting your Russian in-laws