Learn about the grammatical gender of nouns in Russian
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Intro |
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| Michael: How can a word be masculine or feminine? |
| Saodat: And how do I recognize noun gender? |
| Michael: At RussianPod101.com, we hear these questions often. Imagine the following situation: Karen Lee is at a flower shop with her friend Dina Denisenko. She says to the clerk, |
| "A violet chrysanthemum and a yellow tulip." |
| Saodat: Фиолетовая хризантема и жёлтый тюльпан. (Fioletovaya khrizantema i zhyoltyy tyul'pan.) |
| Dialogue |
| Карен Ли: Фиолетовая хризантема и жёлтый тюльпан. (Karen Li: Fioletovaya khrizantema i zhyoltyy tyul'pan.) |
| Дина Денисенко: Только хризантема и тюльпан? (Dina Denisenko: Tol'ko khrizantema i tyul'pan?) |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Карен Ли: Фиолетовая хризантема и жёлтый тюльпан. (Fioletovaya khrizantema i zhyoltyy tyul'pan.) |
| Michael: "A violet chrysanthemum and a yellow tulip." |
| Дина Денисенко: Только хризантема и тюльпан? (Tol'ko khrizantema i tyul'pan?) |
| Michael: "Only a chrysanthemum and a tulip?" |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: Did you notice that the nouns, |
| Saodat: хризантема (chrizantema) |
| Michael: and |
| Saodat: тюльпан (tyul'pan) |
| Michael: are preceded by adjectives with two different endings? |
| Saodat: (SLOW) Фиолетовая (fioletovaya), жёлтый (zhyoltyy) |
| Michael: This is because, in Russian, every noun has a gender, and the preceding adjective changes to match that gender. Other European languages have masculine and feminine nouns too. In addition, only a few of them recognize the neuter gender as well. It's a trait that comes from Latin. In fact, it's common among many languages in the Indo-European language family. However, gender here doesn't mean that a word is somehow male or female. People don't think of certain objects as somehow being like a man or like a woman. And, in most cases, the gender of a Russian word is based on the gender that was assigned to it in Latin. |
| [Recall 1] |
| Michael: Let's take a closer look at the dialogue. |
| Do you remember how Karen says "A violet chrysanthemum and a yellow tulip." |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Saodat: Фиолетовая хризантема и жёлтый тюльпан. (Fioletovaya khrizantema i zhyoltyy tyul'pan.) |
| Michael: In Russian, nouns belong to one of three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. |
| Thus, for example, our violet chrysanthemum, |
| Saodat: Фиолетовая хризантема (fioletovaya khrizantema) |
| Michael: is a representative of the female gender group of nouns. You can recognize feminine nouns usually by looking at their endings. Some of the most popular feminine endings are |
| Saodat: –a, ( -a ) |
| Michael: as, in our example, or |
| Saodat: –я ( -ya ), |
| Michael: as in, |
| Saodat: семья (sem'ya), |
| Michael: meaning "family." Usually, if you consider something as "female" in the real world, it will also be categorized as feminine in Russian. For example, |
| Saodat: девушка (devushka) |
| Michael: meaning "girl," or |
| Saodat: кошка (koshka), |
| Michael: meaning "female cat," are feminine nouns. |
| Our second noun is the yellow tulip, |
| Saodat: жёлтый тюльпан (zhyoltyy tyul'pan), |
| Michael: which belongs to the group of masculine nouns. |
| These nouns usually end in consonants, or in |
| Saodat: мягкий знак (myagkiy znak ) [–ь] |
| Michael: soft sign, as in |
| Saodat: гвоздь (gvozd'), |
| Michael: meaning "nail" or "spike." Also, all nouns having a real masculine representative will also be masculine. For example, |
| Saodat: мальчик (mal'chik) |
| Michael: meaning "boy," or |
| Saodat: кот (kot), |
| Michael: meaning "male cat." |
| However, when it comes to neuter nouns, the majority refer to inanimate objects or abstract nouns, although there are some exceptions. Some of these exceptions include words like |
| Saodat: животное (zhivotnoye) |
| Michael: which means "animal" and |
| Saodat: дитя (ditya) |
| Michael: meaning "child." Excluding the exceptions, most neuter nouns end in |
| Saodat: -о, -е, or -ё. ( -o, -e, or -yo ) |
| Michael: For instance, |
| Saodat: окно ( okno ), |
| Michael: meaning "window," or |
| Saodat: море (more), |
| Michael: meaning "sea." While the endings can be a decent indicator of gender, you shouldn't bet that you'll be right all the time, just by looking at them. |
| You can find masculine nouns ending in an "a," such as |
| Saodat: папа (papa) |
| Michael: meaning "dad," or neuter nouns ending in "-ya," for instance, |
| Saodat: время (vremya) |
| Michael: meaning "time." |
| Learning a noun's gender in Russian is important since it can affect other aspects of the sentence. |
| When it comes to determining noun genders, they simply should be memorized. |
| [Summary] |
| Michael: So far, we've learned that the ending -e is the best way to identify neuter nouns, while -a and -ya usually mark feminine nouns. Other words are usually masculine. However, there are many exceptions to this rule, so it is best to remember a noun's gender when learning the noun itself. |
| Expansion/Contrast (Optional) |
| Michael: In Russian, there are words always used in plural, similar to the word "news" in English, there are no singular forms for words like these. These words, also called plurale tantum, do not have a gender in Russian. One example is |
| Saodat: ножницы (nozhnitsy), |
| Michael: meaning "scissors." |
| Some nouns in Russian also have the common gender, which means that the word can be either masculine or feminine, depending on the subject of the sentence. Such words are, for example, |
| Saodat: староста (starosta), |
| Michael: meaning "class president," or |
| Saodat: умница (umnitsa), |
| Michael: meaning "smart girl or boy." |
| If we talk about professions, the verb will also change depending on the gender |
| With nouns meaning profession, the verb will change depending on the gender of the person, and the adjective will always be masculine: |
| Saodat: Она была хорошим врачом. (Ona byla khoroshim vrachom.), |
| Michael: meaning "She was a good doctor." |
| Cultural Insight |
| Michael: Russian language names, surnames and patronymics usually change depending on the gender of their owner, which may be confusing. But, on the other hand, in most cases, you can easily find out if the person is male or female by looking at their name. |
| Here are some simple tips for this: |
| Our first tip is that Russian men's names usually end with a consonant, like in the names |
| Saodat: Иванов (Ivanov) |
| Michael: or |
| Saodat: Бузинский (Buzinskiy). |
| Michael: For women, we have to take the male names and simply add an |
| Saodat: -а (-a) |
| Michael: at the end, like in the name |
| Saodat: Иванова (Ivanova). |
| Michael: If the male name ends with |
| Saodat: -ой (-oy), -ый (-yy), |
| Michael: or |
| Saodat: -ий (-iy), |
| Michael: we need to treat it like an adjective, so, for women, these endings will change to |
| Saodat: -ая (-aya), |
| Michael: like in the name |
| Saodat: Бузинская (Buzinskaya). |
| Michael: So, if someone's surname ends with an |
| Saodat: -а (-a) |
| Michael: or |
| Saodat: -ая (-aya), |
| Michael: we can assume that it belongs to a woman. |
| Our second tip is that Russian surnames ending with |
| Saodat: -ч (-ch) |
| Michael: and |
| Saodat: -о (-o) |
| Michael: never change. The first ones are originally of Jewish origin, like the name |
| Saodat: Рабинович (Rabinovich) |
| Michael: and the second ones are of Ukranian origin, like the name which should sound familiar to all boxing fans, |
| Saodat: Кличко (Klitschko). |
| Michael: Our third tip is that given male names also usually end with a consonant, while female given names usually end with |
| Saodat: -а (-a) |
| Michael: or |
| Saodat: -я (-ya) |
| Michael: Like, for example, |
| Saodat: Александр (Aleksandr), |
| Michael: the Russian equivalent of Alexander, and |
| Saodat: Александра (Aleksandra), |
| Michael: the female version of Alexander, Alexandra, or the female name |
| Saodat: Наталья (Natal'ya) |
| Michael: However, be careful, almost every name has its short form, which often ends with |
| Saodat: -а (-a) |
| Michael: or |
| Saodat: -я (-ya) |
| Michael: for both male and female names. The best example for this is the name |
| Saodat: Саша (Sasha), |
| Michael: being short both for Alexander and Alexandra. Also, some male names can end in an |
| Saodat: -а (-a), |
| Michael: which can lead to a lot of confusion. The best example is the name |
| Saodat: Никита (Nikita), |
| Michael: being a male name in Russia. |
| However, when Russians move to other countries they often change the spelling of their surnames exchanging the ending "-v" to a double f. |
| Also, Russian expats usually don't distinguish between male and female surnames because it may cause confusion if a child and one of the parents would have a different surname. |
| So, imagining that Marvel's Natasha Romanoff would live in Russia, her name would be actually |
| Saodat: Наташа Романова ( Natasha Romanova ) |
| Michael: Lastly, we'll talk about patronymics. Patronymics are names formed from the father's name, and, in Russia, they serve as a kind of a middle name. |
| Even though they always come from a male name, there are male and female versions of patronymics. So, for men, the patronymic will always end in |
| Saodat: -ович (-ovich) |
| Michael: or |
| Saodat: -евич (-yevich)— |
| Michael: for example, |
| Saodat: Александр Сергеевич (Aleksandr Sergeyevich), |
| Michael: while female patronymics always end with |
| Saodat: -овна (-ovna) |
| Michael: or |
| Saodat: -евна (-yevna)— |
| Michael: for example, |
| Saodat: Анна Александровна (Anna Aleksandrovna) |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We're here to answer them! |
| Saodat: Пока! (Poka!) |
| Michael: See you soon! |
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