Russian Word Order

The structure and word order of Russian sentences is very similar to English. Also Russian can be even more flexible than English in word order. This is because of the ending of the words (inflection) show the relationship between the parts of the sentence, words can go in almost any order and still be understandable.

No Definite and Indefinite Articles

In Russian there is no definite article (the) and indefinite article (a/an). So in english "The dog" would be just собака in Russian. Similarly, "A cat" would just be кошка.

No "to be" Verb

In Russian there is no present tense "to be" verb. What this means is that Russians do not use am, are, and is when writing and talking to each other. There is past tense of the verb "to be" just the present tense is not used. However, a dashed may be used in between two nouns to show the place of the missing verb.

Gender Identification

Nouns in Russian are split into 3 genders, masculine, feminine, and neuter. Nouns are assigned gender in two ways, grammatically and naturally. Grammatically assigned nouns are assigned gender on the basis of their ending. Naturally assigned nouns are assigned gender on the basis of their context, ie man is masculine, woman is feminine, etc.

You're probably wondering why gender is important, right? Well gender is important because it determines the ending of adjectives pronouns, and past tense verbs.

Examples:

Где мой сын? (m)

Где моя мама? (f)

Где моё письмо? (n)

Notice how the bold word (my) changes based upon the gender of the noun. This is why it's important to know the gender of the noun. Below are some guidelines for determining the gender of nouns.

Masculine:
Masculine nouns end in consonants and й.

Examples:

сын - son

стол - chair

чай - tea

However,there are exceptions to the consonant ending for masculine nouns. This is were the natural gender comes into play. It might have a feminine ending, but due to the meaning of the word it is masculine in gender.

Examples:

мужчина - man

дядя - uncle

папа - dad

дедушка - grandfather

Feminine:
Feminine nouns end in а and я.

Examples:

москва - Moscow

семья - family

книга - book

мама - mom

Neuter:
Neuter nouns end in о and е.

Examples:

окно - window

письмо - letter

вино - wine

Soft Ending (Ь) Nouns:
Most nouns ending in ь are feminine, but there are masculine ones too. For instance all of the names of the months are masculine. So with soft ending nouns you'll just have to memorize which ones are feminine or masculine.

Feminine Examples:

Сибирь - Siberia

дверь - door

Masculine Examples:

день - day

рубль - rouble

Foreign Origin Nouns:
Foreign origin nouns are nouns that are borrowed from other languages. If a noun ends in и, у, or ю it is likely to be foreign and if that's the case then it's gender would be neuter.

Examples:

такси - taxi

меню - menu

However if the foreign word denotes something of a feminine meaning then its gender is feminine.

Examples:

леди- lady

Мэри- Mary