Уро́к 1
1.4 Grammar: Grammatical Gender
Люби́мая Грамма́тика
I. Introduction
[VIDEO] – typo at 4:00 усказка
Russian, like many other languages, has grammatical gender.
English does NOT (although, yes, sometimes we call boats and cars ‘she’). Grammatical gender is NOT the same as thing biological sex or a person’s gender identification. In grammar ‘gender’ refers to a qualitative distinction of a noun. That said, a person’s gender in Russian may be different than the inherent grammatical gender of a name.
There are 3 possible genders (yes): masculine, feminine, and neuter.
All nouns have gender in Russian.
If you’ve studied French or Spanish, then this concept will be very familiar to you. There is nothing inherently* masculine, feminine, or neuter about inanimate objects. For whatever reason, in Russian:
- стол ‘table’ is masculine
- ру́чка ‘pen’ is feminine
- окно́ ‘window’ is neuter
*In 2010 The New York Times published an article Does Your Language Shape How You Think?, which considers certain qualities of languages, including gender, to examine whether they influence how speakers see the world
II. How to Identify Grammatical Gender in Spelling
[VIDEO]
1. Masculine
Masculine nouns typically end in:
- A consonant. There are 21 consonants. Remember them? See the alphabet for reference.
- The soft sign –ь. These must be memorized (you’ll see why in a second).
Some examples of masculine nouns are below (final consonant letters are highlighted). Note that there is nothing inherently masculine about any of these nouns. They are just grammatically ‘masculine’.
- стол – ‘table’
- дом – ‘house/building’
- нос – ‘nose’
- слова́рь – ‘dictionary’
2. Feminine
Feminine nouns typically end in:
- The vowels -a or -я.
- The soft sign -ь
**The gender of soft sign nouns must simply be memorized.**
Examples of feminine nouns are below (final vowel/soft sign is highlighted). Note that there is nothing inherently feminine about any of these words.
- Аме́рика – ‘America’
- Росси́я – ‘Russia’
- пло́щадь – ‘(town) square’
3. Neuter
Neuter nouns can end in:
- The vowels -о, –е, or –ё,
- There are a handful of neuter words that end in -мя, which must be memorized.
Examples of neuter nouns are below (final vowel / letter sequence is highlighted).
- мо́ре – ‘sea’
- кино́ – ‘cinema/movie theatre’
- бельё – ‘linens/underclothes’
- и́мя – ‘(first) name’
III. Gender and Pronouns
[VIDEO]
Gender REALLY, REALLY matters when it comes to pronouns. Why?
In English, speakers tend to think of things, like ‘pen’, ‘table’, and ‘window’ as ‘it’.
- Is that my pen?
- No, it‘s mine.
- Well, it looks just like mine.it = the pen in this case
- Do you think of a pen as a ‘she’? Probably not, but a Russian speaker probably does. ‘Table’ is likewise ‘he’ in a Russian speaker’s mind because it is grammatically masculine (note my use of it). This does not mean speakers imbue feminine or masculine attributes to these words – just that the pronoun they think of and use is gendered.
- Pronouns replace nouns.
- Often in English, we use the pronouns ‘He’ and ‘She’ for people and animals. We can use ‘they’ to refer to one person.
Note: The non-grammatical notion of ‘gender’ is not the focus of this lesson, but it is very important and students often have questions about it. Currently, there is a lot of conversation among language teachers around how to represent gender identity in Russian and other Slavic languages, but there is no definitive consensus*. First, it is important to note that what is used in English does not necessarily work the same way in Russian. For example, Russian speakers do not commonly use the pronoun they ‘они’ to refer to someone who identifies as non-binary, nor is the neuter pronoun ‘оно’ used. This is not to say one can’t use ‘они’ (they); it just is not currently as widely used or accepted as it is here. Russian speaking colleagues have shared that those who identify as gender non-binary typically choose either ‘он’ or ‘она’ as their pronoun, depending on their preference or their birth-assigned gender.
*The language is changing all the time, however. Learn more
Examples
Compare the Russian to the English translations. Note the use of pronouns in each of the languages. For people and animate beings only, English permits the use of he and she, whereas Russian uses он ‘he’ and она ‘she’ for both animate beings and objects, depending entirely on an object’s grammatical gender. Finally, the gender of some Russian nouns can be neuter. The pronoun for these nouns is оно which is often translated as ‘it’ in English.
он = it
| Это стол? | ‘Is that the table?’ |
| Да, э́то он. | ‘Yes, that’s it.‘ |
он = he
| Э́то Ива́н? | ‘Is this Ivan?’ |
| Да, э́то он. | Yes, this is he (him).’ |
она́ = she
| Э́то Еле́на? | ‘Is this Elena?’ |
| Да, э́то она́. | ‘Yes, this is she (her).’ |
она́ = it
| Э́то Аме́рика (fem.)? | ‘Is this America?’ |
| Да, э́то она́. | ‘Yes, this is it.’ |
оно́ = it
| Э́то ме́сто (neut.)? | Is this the place?’ |
| Да, э́то оно́. | ‘Yes, this is it.’ |
Счастливая практика
Do you feel like you have a handle on gender yet? Not quite? Practice identifying grammatical gender in Russian below.
[Quizlet]
