Nouns: Gender
In Russian, every noun — even a table or a window — is treated as "he", "she" or "it". We call these three groups masculine, feminine and neuter. Why does it matter? Because words that go with the noun (like "my" or "new") change their ending to match. The great news: you can usually tell a noun's group just by looking at its last letter.
Just look at the last letter
This single table covers the large majority of nouns. Check the final letter of the word and you have its group.
| Group | Ends in… | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Masculine ("he") | a consonant, or -й | стол (stol) table · музей (muzey) museum |
| Feminine ("she") | -а or -я | мама (mama) mum · земля (zemlya) land |
| Neuter ("it") | -о or -е | окно (okno) window · море (more) sea |
The tricky one: words ending in -ь
A word ending in a soft sign -ь can be either masculine or feminine — the letter alone won't tell you. So when you meet such a word, learn its group together with the word. One helpful clue: words ending in -ость are almost always feminine.
People are what they are
A few words for male people end in -а/-я (which normally signals feminine) but are still masculine, because the person is male. Real life wins over the ending.