Genders

[mixturaverborum.livejournal.com]

How do you determine the gender of a word?
Is there a letter or graphic sign which tells you this?

thx
mb

Comments

[ilya1.livejournal.com]

Word ends in consonant: masculine
Word ends in -а, я: usually feminine but may be masculine (e.g., дедушка) or in a few cases neuter (имя, время)
Word ends in о, е: neuter
Word ends in -ь: either masculine or feminine, though there are some patterns -- e.g. all nouns ending in ность are feminine

Hopefully I didn't miss anything important.

[jet-setter.livejournal.com]

All nouns ending in -ость are feminine except for гость, or guest in english.

[jet-setter.livejournal.com]

Oh, I remembered some more.
A hushing (ш,щ,ч,ж) followed by a soft sign is always feminine.
Most nouns ending in -арь (словарь) are masculine.
Most nouns ending in -aдь (тетрадь) are feminine.

[mixturaverborum.livejournal.com]

Петровская эпоха примечательна окончательным оформлением самодержавия.
Самодержавие is a neuter noun and why are the adjectives conjugated as if it's feminine?

[oryx_and_crake]

There are no adjectives in this phrase that describe самодержавие (therefore they do not have to agree with it in gender).

P.S. How come you are able to read such advanced texts and at the same time ask about "graphic signs determining gender"?

[ilya1.livejournal.com]

Ah, right, I knew about the -ость and husher rules, but I'd forgotten. Thanks.

[avysk]

кофе (coffee) is masculine.

[staring-frog.livejournal.com]

But according to recent regulations it can be neuter too. It is no more a mistake to conjugate "кофе" as neuter.

[ashalynd.livejournal.com]

Some people would treat you as a person with not too much education if you conjugate кофе as neuter. It is one of those notorious flamebaits which exist in every language.

Taken from a nice Russian Grammar Reference

[ru-entranslator.livejournal.com]

http://www.alphadictionary.com/rusgrammar/

The indeclinable nouns are exceptional borrowed words, usually ending on an odd vowel, not recognized by Russian grammar: у, и, е but also o. (Borrowed words ending on a are usually treated at Declension II nouns, since nouns in that declension typically end on a.) Some common words with no declension class (thus no case endings and hence their name: 'indeclinable nouns') are пальто "overcoat", кофе "coffee", кафе "cafe", кенгуру "kangaroo", кино "movie theater", такси "taxi", атташе "attache".

[whitest-owl.livejournal.com]

Just for information: when coffe was introduced in Russia, during Peter The Great reign, it was called "кофий". Folowing the rule "ends in consonant -> masculine" it was considered as masculine. It was shortend to "кофе" almost immediately, but gender stays.

[avysk]

You're not completely right. Neuter gender is allowed for "кофе" in informal spoken language only; in written language it's masculine. You may want to check spravka.gramota.ru; for examlpe, question 186390.

[embers.livejournal.com]

SO HELPFUL. I was always taught that you just have to memorize on a word-by-word basis what gender ь words were!

WHY DID MY TEACHERS NEVER TELL ME THIS?

[oryx_and_crake]

I am afraid you still have to memorise it. Even native speakers make mistakes sometimes (е.g. шампунь (shampoo) is masculine, but some people use it in feminine etc.)

[stephan-nn.livejournal.com]

Word ends in -а, я: usually feminine but may be masculine (e.g., дедушка) or in a few cases neuter (имя, время)

>90% word ends in -а, я are feminine. Some words can be masculine (папа, дедушка, some names like Илья, Никита, Савва) and some may be both feminine and masculine (неряха, растяпа)

ALL words ends in -мя (there are only 10 words - имя, вымя, время, бремя, стремя, племя, пламя, знамя, темя, семя) - neuter.

Word ends in о, е: neuter
Except word "кофе" which is masculine and may be some words from French.

all nouns ending in -ность are feminine
Yes.
And all words ends in -шь, чь, жь are feminine.