GrammarNouns Gender

Nouns Gender

In Russian, every noun has a grammatical gender: masculine (m), feminine (f), or neuter (n). Gender is important because it affects adjectives, pronouns, and past tense verbs.

Most nouns have a fixed gender, but:

• Some refer to both men and women: колле́га (colleague), сирота́ (orphan).
• Some exist only in plural and have no gender: штаны́ (trousers), но́жницы (scissors).
• Some look like one gender but actually are the other, like па́па (father).

1. Look at the ending

In most cases, you can determine gender directly from the noun’s ending:

• ends in a consonant → masculine
  дом, стол, брат
• ends in -а / -я → feminine
  ма́ма, кни́га, неде́ля
• ends in -о / -е → neuter
  окно́, мо́ре

This covers the majority of nouns.

2. Soft sign (ь): memorize

Nouns ending in ь can be either masculine (ca. 25%) or feminine (ca. 75%).

• Masculine: день, учи́тель
• Feminine: ночь, дверь, любо́вь

All nouns ending in ь: full list

There is no universal rule - learn the gender together with the word.

3. Important patterns

Some endings strongly indicate gender:

• -тель → masculine
  учи́тель, води́тель
• -арь / -ор / -ник → masculine
  слова́рь, профе́ссор, учени́к
• -ость → feminine
  ско́рость, возмо́жность
• -мя → neuter (small special group!)
  вре́мя, и́мя, пле́мя, зна́мя

4. Exceptions

Some nouns look like one gender but are actually another:

• Masculine with -а / -я:
  па́па, дя́дя, мужчи́на, ю́ноша.
  full list here
• Feminine with consonant (rare):
  мисс, Бангладе́ш
  full list here

These must be memorized.

5. People & roles (natural gender)

For nouns referring to people, there are two different things:

• Grammatical gender → fixed property of the word
• Natural gender → the actual person (male or female)

Usually, both match:

• брат (brother) → grammatically masculine + gender male
• сестра́ (sister) → grammatically feminine + gender female

Sometimes the word form is misleading:

• па́па (father), дя́дя (uncle), мужчи́на (man) → masculine (despite -а)

And some nouns can refer to both genders:

• врач (doctor), колле́га (colleague)

In these cases, agreement follows the real person, not just the word form:

• Он - хоро́ший врач. (He is a good doctor.)
• Она́ - хоро́шая врач. (She is a good doctor. - colloquial; in careful style you'd still say хоро́ший врач)

Verbs in the past tense also follow natural gender:

• Врач пришёл. (The male doctor came.)
• Врач пришла́. (The female doctor came.)

Important:

• The noun’s grammatical gender does not change.
• Only the agreement (adjectives, verbs) reflects the real person.

6. Gender pairs (masculine ↔ feminine)

Many nouns referring to people (and some animals) have separate masculine and feminine forms.

• кот (m) → ко́шка (f)
  (cat)
• учи́тель (m) → учи́тельница (f)
  (teacher)
• студе́нт (m) → студе́нтка (f)
  (student)

Common ways to form the feminine:

• Add -ка: студе́нт → студе́нтка
• Add -ница: учи́тель → учи́тельница
• Irregular pairs: мужчи́на → же́нщина

7. Plural-only nouns

Some nouns exist only in plural and therefore have no gender:

• де́ньги (money)
• но́жницы (scissors)
• штаны́ (trousers)

All plural-only nouns

Summary

• Consonant → masculine
• -а / -я → feminine
• -о / -е → neuter
• ь → memorize

Learn each noun together with its gender - it’s part of the word.