Grammatical Gender

Рід

• A system that classifies nouns as masculine, feminine, or neuter.
• Grammatical gender is a foundational aspect of the Ukrainian language because it shapes how the different parts of speech interact, making sentences coherent and intelligible.

Corresponding text: 01.2 - Звідки ви?

Nouns

In Ukrainian, every noun belongs to one of three grammatical genders: masculine, feminine, or neuter. This matters because the noun acts as the central reference point in a sentence. Parts of speech that modify the noun - like adjectives and pronouns - must agree with it in number, gender, and case.

Coherence and intelligibility

Just as correct word stress is vital for the proper pronunciation and meaning of words, correct gender agreement is vital for the overall coherence and intelligibility of a sentence.

This agreement shows how words connect, making sentences easier to parse. Without it, sentences lose clarity - just as misplacing stress can obscure meaning. If you ignore any of these agreements when constructing a sentence, listeners or readers may struggle to understand who or what you're referring to.

Think of grammatical gender as a color code: every word connected to the noun must be the same color. When going through your loop, try color-coding each agreement with a highlighter. You could use blue for masculine, pink for feminine, and something like green or orange for neuter - or choose your own color scheme. By doing this, you'll begin to associate each color with its specific gender, making agreement more intuitive. It's like a mnemonic, but with color.

Another way to think about gender rules is with conditional "if-then" statements. For example:

• IF the noun is masculine, THEN the agreeing word takes the masculine ending.
• IF the noun is feminine, THEN the agreeing word takes the feminine ending.
• IF the noun is neuter, THEN the agreeing word takes the neuter ending.

Getting comfortable with this pattern now will really pay off once we start learning cases, because endings shift depending on gender, number, and case, extending the same conditional logic.

Recognizing grammatical gender

So, how do we recognize the gender of a noun so we can make the right agreement? The most reliable way is by looking at the ending of its base form (nominative singular).

To keep things clear, I've organized the typical endings (закінчення) for each gender onto separate pages.

• Masculine gender
• Feminine gender
• Neuter gender

I've also included additional ways to recognize grammatical gender, like nouns that denote men and women (nationalities, professions, family roles). You'll see plenty of these in the first four weeks (01.1 - 01.4).

Pronouns, adjectives, and examples

Other parts of speech change form depending on a noun's gender. To see how this works in practice, let's look at a few simple examples with pronouns and adjectives.

Gendered personal pronouns include він (m), вона (f), and воно (n). They represent the person or object without naming them. Importantly, they reflect the noun's gender, not the speaker's:

• Це мій рюкзак. Він дуже важкий. (This is my backpack. It's very heavy.)
• Моя книга у рюкзаку. Вона для школи. (My book is in the backpack. It's for school.)
• Де моє завдання? Воно не тут! (Where is my assignment? It's not here!)

Possessive pronouns also reflect the gender of the noun: мій (m), моя (f), моє (n).

Can you see all of the agreements in the examples? Then you may have also noticed the adjective важкий agreeing with the pronoun він in the first example.

Adjectives are straightforward. Each has four forms: three for gender and one for plural. Their endings are:

• -ий/-ій for masculine
• -а/-я for feminine
• -е/-є for neuter
• -і for plural

Like pronouns, adjectives simply agree with the gender of the noun. Наприклад, this is the adjective "interesting":

• цікавий (цікавий факт)(an interesting fact)
• цікава (цікава книга)(an interesting book)
• цікаве (цікаве місто)(an interesting city)
• цікаві (цікаві люди)(interesting people)

Просто, так? (Simple, right?) Чудово! (Great!)

A useful tool to check grammatical gender

If you're unsure about a word's gender, you can check it in this Ukrainian orthographic dictionary. It lists both the part of speech and gender.

Наприклад, if you look up the words будинок (house/building), машина (car), or місце (place), the heading above the declension table will look like this:

• будинок - іменник чоловічого роду (house/building - masculine noun)
• машина - іменник жіночого роду (car - feminine noun)
• місце - іменник середнього роду (place - neuter noun)

This is especially helpful for words ending in a soft sign or those that don't follow the usual patterns (exceptions).