Duo Russian Grammar

10) Possessive Modifiers 1

Russian possessives

There isn't much to say about words like "my" or "your" in Russian.

  • his/her/their do not change: его́, её, их (and they don't get an initial Н after prepositions!)
  • my/your/our roughly follow an adjectival pattern, i.e. they copy the gender and the case of the noun they describe. Just like этот:
    • мой/твой/наш папа
    • моя́/твоя́/на́ша ма́ма

Unlike English, no distinction is made between my and mine, her and hers etc.

Pronunciation: in «его», as well as in adjective endings and "сегодня" the letter Г is pronounced В. It is a historical spelling.

Grammatical gender

Nouns in Russian belong to one of three genders: feminine, masculine or neuter. If a noun means a person of a certain gender, use that one. For all other nouns look at the end of the word:

ending in Nom.sg. gender examples
-а/-я feminine ма́ма, земля́, Росси́я, маши́на
consonant masculine сок, ма́льчик, чай, интерне́т, апельси́н
-о/-е neuter окно́, яйцо́, мо́ре
-ь feminine or masculine; consult a dictionary ло́шадь, ночь, мать, любо́вь / день, конь, медве́дь, учи́тель
If there's a soft sign, it isn't possible to predict the gender, at least, not accurately. However, about 65-70% of the most used nouns that end in -ь are feminine. Also, you can learn the common suffixes ending in a soft sign that produce a word of a predictable gender. They are:
  • -ость/-есть, -знь → feminine
  • -тель, -арь, -ырь → masculine
All nouns with -чь, щь, -шь, -жь at the end are feminine. The convention is to spell feminine nouns with a soft sign and masculine ones without one: нож, луч, муж, душ. It doesn't affect pronunciation, anyway.

Levels

  1. 1) Alphabet 1
  2. 2) Basics 1
  3. 3) Phrases 1
  4. 4) Единственное число
  5. 5) Name and polite "You"
  6. 6) Plurals
  7. 7) Where is it?
  8. 8) Animals 1
  9. 9) Genitive Case - 1
  10. 10) Possessive Modifiers 1
  11. 11) Partitive
  12. 12) Accusative Case: the direct object
  13. 13) Verbs Present 1
  14. 14) Infinitive, Likes and Dislikes
  15. 15) Food
  16. 16) Adjectives Introduction
  17. 17) Conjunctions
  18. 18) There is
  19. 19) Questions
  20. 20) People 1
  21. 21) Around you
  22. 22) Prepositions and Places
  23. 23) Verbs Present 2
  24. 24) Time and Numbers
  25. 25) Family
  26. 26) People 1
  27. 27) Weather and Nature
  28. 28) Sport
  29. 29) Adjectives 1
  30. 30) Past & Infinitive
  31. 31) VLAD
  32. 32) Dative and Plurals
  33. 33) Reported speech
  34. 34) Perfective Verbs
  35. 35) I
  36. 36) Body and Health
  37. 37) Genitive Plural
  38. 38) Adjectives 2
  39. 39) Short and Long
  40. 40) Perfective verbs
  41. 41) Countries and Places
  42. 42) House
  43. 43) Reflexive
  44. 44) Time expressions 2
  45. 45) Imperative and Adverbs
  46. 46) Образовние
  47. 47) City and People
  48. 48) Imperative2
  49. 49) That Which
  50. 50) Technics
  51. 51) Future Simple
  52. 52) Being Instrumental
  53. 53) Placing Objects
  54. 54) Kitchen and Food
  55. 55) Speaking
  56. 56) Subjunctive
  57. 57) Compound Future
  58. 58) Prefixed Verbs of Motion
  59. 59) Arts & Entertainment
  60. 60) Together
  61. 61) Numbers 2
  62. 62) Adjectives 3
  63. 63) Plans
  64. 64) Prepositions 2
  65. 65) The Same
  66. 66) Fleeting Vowels
  67. 67) Measure
  68. 68) Business
  69. 69) Morphology
  70. 70) History & Fantasy
  71. 71) Participles
  72. 72) Computers & Internet
  73. 73) Adverbial Participles
  74. 74) Science
  75. 75) Politics
  76. 76) Spiritual
  77. 77) Some Spoken Patterns
  78. 78) Nothing Left
  79. 79) Crime and Justice