Уро́к 1
1.4 Грамма́тика – Pronouns
Personal Pronouns
Subject Pronouns
Below are Russian subject pronouns. Subject pronouns, like subject nouns, always agree with the verb.
Side note: What does subject – verb agreement mean again? It means that the verb conjugates for a specific subject. We’ll see more about this soon in Russian when we learn verbs, but in English this agreement can be seen with a few forms when conjugating the verb ‘to be’. In English, you say ‘I am,’ ‘You are,’ and ‘He is’. You do. We don’t say ‘I are.’ We don’t. Although verbs don’t typically change much in English, we do see different inflections (endings) for third-person singular subjects, like ‘He’, ‘She’, ‘It’, ‘The class’, ‘My dog’, or ‘Elvis.’ Note the difference: ‘I sing.’ but ‘Elvis sings‘. The final ‘s’ tells speakers that the subject is third-person singular.
Listen and try to memorize these – how they sound and what they mean.
| Singular | Plural | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st person | я* (I) | мы* (we) | ||
| 2nd person | ты* (you) | вы* (you all / you (formal)) | ||
| 3rd person | он (he)
она́ (she) оно́ (it) |
они́ (they) | ||
Examples
Try reading these to yourself. Note the translations and that there is no ‘be’ verb in Russian.
| Я студе́нтка. | I (am a) student. |
| Ты студе́нт. | You (are a) student. |
| Он профе́ссор. | He (is a) professor. |
| Мы студе́нты. | We are students. |
| Вы профе́ссор? | Are you a professor? |
| Вы студе́нты? | Are you (y’all) students? |
| Они́ муж и жена́. | They are husband and wife. |
| Э́то я!* | It’s (I) me!* |
*Note: although ‘я’, or ‘I’, is in the predicate in the last example, the subject pronoun is used.
