Category of Gender

In the Russian language there is a category of grammatical gender. There are three genders: masculine, feminine, neutral. Some nouns have no gender because they can be used for both masculine and feminine. Some words are classified according to sex and the rest is arbitrary. So nouns naming females are usually feminine and nouns naming masculine are usually masculine. Neutral gender is usually used for abstract notions and inanimate objects.

Usually you can determine the gender of a word by looking at its ending.

Masculine words end in a consonant (including Й and Ь), rarely А and Я, all the words that end in - тель.

Feminine words end in A, Я or Ь (all the words that end in жь, шь, чьб щь).

Neutral words endings are O or E.

For example,

Растение (plant) – neutral

Кино (film)- neutral

Дорога (road) - feminine

Еда (food) – feminine

Мужчина (man) - musculine

Дядя (uncle) - masculine

Земля (earth) - feminine

Время (time) – neutral

Ягуар (jaguar) - masculine

Грязь (dirt) – feminine

Область (region) - feminine

Уровень (level) – masculine

Музей (museum) - masculine

There is an exception for neutral words. Beside words ending in E and O you should remember the following nouns because they also belong to neutral gender:

Темя (cinciput)

Семя (seed)

Полымя (flame)

Пламя (flame too)

Стремя (stirrup)

Время (time)

Вымя (udder)

Бремя (burden)

Знамя (flag)

Племя (tribe)

Имя (name)

Дитя (child)

Gender can be optional for some words because they can describe men and women. So the gender is to be chosen according to the context.

Сирота (orphan)

Плакса (weeper)

Зазнайка (swellhead)

Обжора (glutton)

Тихоня (timid person)

It is not always easy to determine the right gender of a word because some masculine and feminine words end in the same letters. J It is better to check every word in a dictionary. The grammatical gender of some words may sometimes depend on the gender of Russian genetic words denoting the relevant meaning.

For example, месяц (month) is masculine so январь (January) and февраль (February) and all other names of months are masculine.

 

The same principle works for indeclinable words with untypical endings. They are usually foreign:

Авеню (avenue) is feminine because its generic word is улица (street – feminine).

Торнадо (tornado) is masculine because its generic word is ураган (hurricane –masculine).

Some foreign indeclinable words you just have to remember because there is no logical way to explain why they belong to this or that gender. 

Такси (taxi) – neutral

Меню (menu) - neutral

:)