Russian Lessons Online: Possessive Pronouns. Noun Gender.

Russian nous may be divided in 3 groups, called ‘genders’: masculine, feminine and neuter. It’s very important to know, what gender the noun refers to, because the gender affects the endings of the corresponding adjectives, participles and some pronouns. Have a look:

masculine gender:	мой но́вый дом	my new house
feminine gender:	моя но́вая кни́га	my new book
neuter gender:	моё но́вое пла́тье	my new dress

As a rule, to know the gender of a noun, it’s enough to analyze its ending:

Gender	Endings	Examples
masculine	-consonant -ь	стол – table день – day
feminine	-а -я -ь	рабо́та – work, job неде́ля – week ночь – night
neuter	-о -е -ё -мя	окно́ – window мо́ре – sea бельё – linen и́мя – name

As you can see, nouns ending in -ь may be masculine or feminine. In order to avoid possible mistakes in this case, you should consult a dictionary.

These rules have some exceptions, and the most important ones are examined in lesson ‘Russian Noun Gender: Exceptions’.

And now let’s examine Russian possessive pronouns. The forms of some of them depend on the gender of the corresponding noun. Such pronouns as его́, её, их are indifferent to noun gender and never change their forms:

	masc.	fem.	neu.
my	мой	моя́	моё
your	твой	твоя́	твоё
our	наш	на́ша	на́ше
your (plur.)	ваш	ва́ша	ва́ше
his/its	его́
her	её
their	их

Please, see more information and more examples in the video:

See also:

• Russian Noun Gender: Exceptions.
• Plural Forms of Russian Masculine and Feminine Nouns and Possessive Pronouns.
• Plural Forms of Russian Neuter Nouns.

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