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Russian |
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Russian has three grammatical genders. Each of them has a distinctive declension paradigma, although there are also sub classes. Male animate nouns have a slightly altered paradigma compared to inanimated ones. There are no articles in Russian but it is usually easy to distinguish the gender by the noun endings.
Nouns
Male Gender
Male nouns usually end in consonants. There are a few nouns which end in "-а" or "-я" but they denote persons only. They are semantically male but grammatically female in singular, so the accompanying adjectives or pronouns have to be chose according to the fitting case of the male declension paradigma, whereas the -a noun is declined like a female noun. The plural paradigma of "-а" nouns is exclusively male.
Some nouns also end in "-ь".
You will also meet adjectives which are used as nouns (usually a noun had been omitted and the trunctuated version became lexicalised). These will end in "-ый" or "-ий".
Examples:
- Male Gender:
Inanimate male nouns: дом, мяч, стол, стул, кошелёк, поезд, дворец Animate male nouns: кот, волк, отец, брат, журналист, дядя, мужчина, медведь
Feminine Gender
Female nouns usually end in "-а" or "я". There are also other endings but those are rather rare, although they these nouns are frequently used, so that it is important to know them. They often also have slightly different declension paradigmas. All nouns ending in "-ость" and "-есть" are female.
Some nouns also end in "-ь".
The female adjectives used as nouns end in "-ая" or "-яя".
Examples:
- Female Gender: карта, неделя, собака, лампа, личность, ночь, мать, мышь
Neuter Gender
Neuter nouns end in "-о" or "-е". Very few nouns end in "-ё" and "-мя" (there are only a dozen "-мя" nouns).
The neuter adjectives used as nouns end in "-ое" or "-ее".
Examples:
- Neuter Gender: пиво, солнце, окно, молоко, имя, время, озеро, ружьё
| Russian pages
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| Introduction · Adpositions · Gender · Lexicon · Pronouns · Sounds and Writing · Verbs |
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