RUSSIAN NOUNS. The number of nouns can be either singular or plural. - door (if a … For example, письмо (pees-MO, 'letter') ends in an -o, so it is grammatically neuter. ... Neuter Nouns: 1. A few rules may be helpful in determining the gender of nouns ending in -ь: Why is it important? These just have to be memorised. One of the main differences between Russian and English is the fact that every Russian noun belongs to one of the 3 genders: masculine, feminine or neuter. If the last letter of the word is a soft sign ‘ь’, then the word could be either masculine or feminine. The gender can be masculine, feminine or neuter and is important to know because it affects the endings of other related words in a sentence, including pronouns, adjectives and past-tense verbs. Feminine nouns that end in ь are labeled as f. or ж. , in the word lists and dictionaries, for example: дверь ж . From the above rules, you can see that the only tricky words are the ones ending in a soft sign -ь. So, in Russian, nouns have an intrinsic property called 'gender', which comes in three types: masculine, feminine, and neuter. In English we commonly use the words "by" or "with" to do this. Neuter nouns end in о or е. The grammatical gender is more or less (but not always regularly) related to the meaning of a word if a noun denotes a person or an animal: nouns naming males are usually grammatically masculine, nouns naming females are usually grammatically feminine. Soft stems of neuter nouns are indicated by -ё and-е: ружьё, море. The division of Russian nouns into masculine, feminine and neuter have no substantial and well-grounded explanation. For the nouns that end in ь , you must learn their gender when you learn the words. When later we start using adjectives and verbs, it is the gender that affects the endings. Nouns ending in a consonant, - a or - о are hard nouns. Nouns ending in - й, -ь, -я, -е, and - ё are soft nouns. Nouns ending in -ь can be either masculine or feminine. In Russian, the instrumental case is used to indicate how something is done. Add “м” The phrase "if stressed" in this case, means if the end of the word is stressed. If the last letter of the word is ‘о’ or ‘е’, the word is neuter. When Russian nouns change grammatical number, their endings undergo changes to reflect that fact. Knowing the gender of a noun is important as it affects the endings the noun takes in different cases. A noun names a person, animal, phenomenon, thing, substance, etc.. All Russian nouns belong to one of the three genders: masculine, feminine, neuter. Nouns Ending in -ь. Neuter nouns end in-o,-e, or -ё: окн о – window; м о ре – sea; ружь ё – gun. In this episode we look at Russian neuter nouns ending in '- ие'.