The Gender of Nouns

Russian nouns are distinguished by gender and change for number and case. All the
nouns belong to one of three genders: masculine, feminine or neuter. The gender of a
noun is generally shown by its ending.

Nouns without an ending whose stem terminates in a hard consonant or the consonant -
are masculine:

- house (ending in a consonant)

- city (ending in a consonant)
- museum (ending in -)

Nouns ending in -a or - are feminine: - country (ending in -)

- earth (ending in -)

The gender of nouns denoting persons is determined by the sex of the person
concerned. The words (papa, daddy), (granddad), (uncle),
/iunosha(youth), (man), / mal'chishka (boy) etc., which
denote males, are masculine (no matter what their endings are).
All masculine names (whatever their endings) belong to the masculine gender:
(), (), ()// Volodya (Vladimir),
()// Kolya (Nikolay), ()// Serioja (Sergey), ()//
Vanya (Ivan), (), (), () etc.

The word (child) is neuter.

There are 10 Russian nouns ending in -: (name), (time), /plamia
(flame), /znamia (banner), /plemia (tribe), /semia (seed),
/tiemia (top of the head), /bremia (burden), /stremia (stirrup),
(udder); they are all neuter.

Nouns ending in - or -/- are neuter: - letter (ending in -)

- sea (ending in -)
/zdanie- building (ending in -)
/rujio - gun (ending in -)
The word (coffee) is masculine.

Nouns ending in - (the soft sign) make up a separate group and may be:

masculine or feminine:
- rouble - mother
/slavar - dictionary /tietrad- exercise-book
Their gender must be memorised!