For example: папа/dad, дядя/uncle, дедушка/grandfather. Top – А Б В Г Д Е Ё Ж З И Й К Л М Н О П Р С Т У Ф Х Ц … The concept of noun genders is not difficult to understand if your native language has them. Nouns are words that name things (laptop), people (teacher), and places (Moscow, Europe). Moreover Russian nouns are masculine, feminine, or neuter. This guide will go through the rules to help you figure out the genders of nouns in the Russian language. The same is true for possessive pronouns: the 'my' in 'my dog' (моя собака) and 'my table' (мой стол) are different, as the gender of 'dog' (собака, f) and 'table' (стол, m) are different. And since -Ь always follows a consonant, it is always a consonant and the soft sign. The gender of each noun is marked as either masculine, neuter or feminine. But many languages, such as Austronesian, Turkic, and Uralic language families lack this noun genders in their languages. Nouns ending in -ь can be either masculine or feminine. Masculine words ends with a й or a consonant (we will also discuss the exceptions of the letter ь - the soft letter). While in English objects are defined by the pronoun "it," in Russian, an object can be of any gender, for example, a book is feminine (книга - KNEEga), a phone is masculine (телефон - tyelyeFON), and a ring is neuter (кольцо - kal'TSO). КАКА́О – cocoa ЖЮРИ́ – jury ЖЕЛЕ́ – jelly КУПЕ́ – compartment МЕНЮ́ – menu РЕЗЮМЕ́ – resume, CV Neuter nouns are nouns ending in the vowel – о or – е: письмо(a letter) платье(a dress) здание(a building) Nouns which end in – ь (the soft sign) may be either masculine or feminine. Sometimes you will come across words that end on the soft letter, and you won't know be able to tell the gender of the noun. Unfortunately, there are no rules to determine the gender in these cases, so you'll have to learn them by heart. And since -Ь always follows a consonant, it is always a consonant and the soft sign. But why is this important? Russian Gender of Nouns: As mentioned before, Russian is gender sensitive, with its three genders (masculine, feminine, or neuter) a new learner should memorize the gender of a new word, along with the word itself, especially because there is no physical meaning to many words. Note: Some of the words ending on е and о (typical Neuter gender ending) belong to Masculine gender. Some of the words ending on а and я are not feminine, and it's easy to explain why. Russian nouns of neuter gender, i.e. The above-mentioned rules provide a general idea how to determine the grammatical gender of nouns, but many Russian nouns may have other endings or their gender does not conform to these rules. Russian noun : English translation : Gender : 201. число : number: neuter: 202. рубль : ruble: masculine: 203. вера : faith, belief: feminine: 204. удар : blow, stroke: masculine: 205. телефон : telephone: masculine: 206. колено : knee: neuter: 207. коридор : corridor, passage: masculine: 208. мужик : muzhik, man: masculine: 209. автор : author This is because all Russian nouns have a gender that can be feminine, masculine, or neuter. Intermediate Russian. in -мя. For the rest neuter nouns: – if the word ends in Е – replace it with Я. Note: We already mentioned that the Russian has a few exceptions. Examples. However, English lacks gender pronouns for inanimate objects, like a chair. In most languages, words are described as being 'masculine' or 'feminine', and a lot of languages, including Russian, also have words described as 'neuter' (i.e., neutral, or no gender). Nouns ending in -ь can be either masculine or … Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Remember that … 1. Female gender nouns end with а, я and ия (we will also discuss the exceptions, such as letter ь - the soft letter). Top Russian nouns: 51-100 2 of 7 | < Prev Next > effort, strain, exertion. However, in most cases (if not all), the nouns ending in -ЧЬ are feminine: – ночь (night) – дочь (daughter) – горечь (bitterness) – печь (stove) Nouns ending in the soft sign -ь can be either masculine or feminine: день (day - masculine), жизнь (life - feminine). Masculine words ends with a й or a consonant (we will also discuss the exceptions of the letter ь - the soft letter). If the adjective is masculine, then the noun will be masculine as well. Note: Some of the words ending on е and о (typical Neuter gender ending) belong to Masculine gender. As such, it is perhaps easiest to think of plurals as a 'fourth gender', and this is the way summary tables in this Wikibook will be presented. For example: кофе(coffee), манго(Mango), торнадо(Tornado), бренди (Brandy), Names of languages. Masculine words ending on -а or -я follow the same declension patterns as the feminine nouns do. One of the first things you want to do when learning Russian is to learn to differentiate noun genders. There are 12 nouns that end in - я. Neuter nouns that end in other letters are, as a rule, indeclinable nouns borrowed from other languages. 'Gender' is a way of categorising nouns in a language. Fortunately, it's easy to learn, and easy to use. From Wikibooks, open books for an open world, https://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Russian/Grammar/Gender&oldid=3551645. уси́лие [u-sée-lee-ye] Noun , neuter. So, in Russian, nouns have an intrinsic property called 'gender', which comes in three types: masculine, feminine, and neuter. In Russian, both masculine and feminine nouns can end in -Ь. The vast majority of declinable neuter nouns end in - о, - е or - ё. Personal pronouns (I, we, they, etc) don't usually have any inherent gender, instead taking on the gender of the thing they're referring to - though third-person singular pronouns do have specific genders: он ('he'), она ('she'), and оно ('it'). This page was last edited on 11 June 2019, at 10:23. In Russian, both masculine and feminine nouns can end in -Ь. Top 500 Russian Nouns. To learn Russian, you have to be able to know the gender of a noun when you use it. Russian Cases The genitive case of nouns Plural nouns Usage of the Prepositional Case Agreement of nouns with numbers. Gender also influences how you form the past tense of verbs: The 'wrote' in 'He wrote' (он написал) and 'she wrote' (она написала) are different, as the genders of the subject of the verb, 'he' and 'she', are different. Also remember that words ВРЕ́МЯ (time) and И́МЯ (name) are neuter, too. This page explains the concept of gender in language. These just have to be memorised. This carries over into adjectives too: the endings they take on when their noun is plural, are independent of gender. The rules for forming the plural depend on which grammatical case the word is in. This page continues the frequency list for 500 widely used Russian nouns and their English translations. English lacks noun genders, but differentiates genders of human individuals and animals with he, she, or it. How to Differentiate Masculine, Feminine, and Neuter Genders in Russian. For example, письмо (pees-MO, 'letter') ends in an -o, so it is grammatically neuter. Neuter nouns end in о or е. Like most other things in Russian, the gender of a noun is denoted by what letters are on the end of the word: So, in Russian, nouns have an intrinsic property called 'gender', which comes in three types: masculine, feminine, and neuter. However, the important thing here is that the rules are largely the same for all nouns, regardless of gender. If you have studied another language that has gender, such as French or Spanish, and so are familiar with grammatical gender, feel free to skip this section. Neuter nouns end in о or е. Fortunately, in Russian, gender can be predicted. Gender affects a lot of different parts of Russian grammar, and so is an important part of learning Russian. For example, письмо (pees-MO, 'letter') ends in an -o, so it is grammatically neuter. Contents. Chair is a masculine noun in Russian, and you refer to it as “him”. To get started, take a look at these rules that we have prepared for you: There are exceptions where masculine nouns can end with -а or -я, just like feminine nouns. feminine imperfective masculine neuter perfective plural. It is grammatically neuter grammatically neuter much the same declension patterns as feminine. The adjectives that modify the nouns russian neuter nouns a vowel or a consonant and the soft sign masculine noun in,... 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