Noun Gender and Number

There are three genders in Russian: masculine, feminine and neuter. You can usually determine the gender of a noun by its ending. Here are some basic rules, although exceptions exist:

Masculine gender:

Feminine gender:

Neuter gender:

Nouns ending in the soft sign -ь can be either masculine or feminine: день (day - masculine), жизнь (life - feminine). The best way to tell the gender of such nouns is to memorize it as you progress with your Russian language study.

Remember that there are no definite or indefinite articles in Russian. The meaning of English articles "a", "an" and "the" is determined from the context and some other means, including word order, the use of plurals, demonstrative pronouns and cases.

The number of nouns

English plurals end in -s. In Russian, there are more endings to make plurals. They are all summed up in the table:

Noun type	Ending for plural	Example
masculine ending in a hard consonant; feminine ending in -a	-ы	стол - столы улица - улицы
any nouns ending in -ь, -й, -я	-и	двeрь - двери земля - земли
masculine and feminine with the stem ending in -к, -г, -x, -ч, -щ, -ж, -ш,	-и	ноЖ - ножи ноГа - ноги
neuter ending in -o	-a	окно - окнa
neuter ending in -e	-я	мoре - моря

Some nouns are always singular. These are nouns that designate substances кислород, медь (oxygen, copper), food products сахар, мука (sugar, flour), a block of objects мебель (furniture), some actions охота (hunting), feelings любовь, здоровье (love, health), sorts of fabric бархат (velvet), medicine аспирин (aspirin), some vegetables and berries картофель, морковь (potato, carrots).

You will have to know the genders and plurals, because they influence the use of adjectives and pronouns. Look at how the word красивый (beautiful) changes by gender and number:

Красивый:

Gender	Word change
masculine:	красивый мяч
feminine:	красивая девушка
neuter:	красивое море
plural: (all genders)	красивые мячи красивые девушки     красивые моря