# "он" and "она" replacing inanimate nouns



## ilbon007musa

An old Russian language dictionary says that  "он" and "она" can be used not only to indicate a man or a woman, but also to indicate things.
For example;
У меня автомобиль. Он прекрасен.
У меня книга. Она прекрасна.
Can I use this way even today?
No problem?
Or is it an old style to be laughed at?


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## Orlin

ilbon007musa said:


> An old Russian language dictionary says that "он" and "она" can be used not only to indicate a man or a woman, but also to indicate things.
> For example;
> У меня автомобиль. Он прекрасен.
> У меня книга. Она прекрасна.
> Can I use this way even today?
> No problem?
> Or is it an old style to be laughed at?


 
Yes, "он" is masculine 3rd p. sg. and "она" is feminine 3rd p. sg. and these pronouns can stand for both animate (people&animals) and inanimate (all the rest) nouns. Russian has another more 3rd p. sg. personal pronoun - the neuter "оно", which is used to replace all neuter nouns. Don't forget that Russian has *grammatic *gender unlike English and in general it means that all nouns are separated in several (3 in Russian) mutually exclusive groups and every noun belongs to one of these groups (there are very little excertions in which one noun can be of 2 genders) - there are some rules for this - and declension, agreement, etc. depend on which of these groups (genders) a certain nouns belongs to.


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## dec-sev

ilbon007musa said:


> У меня автомобиль. Он прекрасен. masculine.
> У меня книга. Она прекрасна. feminine
> В моей комнате есть окно. Оно большое.  neutral.





ilbon007musa said:


> An old Russian language dictionary says that "он" and "она" can be used not only to indicate a man or a woman, but also to indicate things.


 How old is the dictionary?  To tell you the truth, as far as I know,  "oн" has always been used as a pronoun for  inanimated objects, as well as "oна" for animated ones.


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## ilbon007musa

Thank you all so much.  I am relieved to know that. The dictionary was published in 1965. 
I bought the most expensive grammar book recently published in Japan, but the book does not mention that. Thank you for your help again.


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## morzh

>>To tell you the truth, as far as I know,  "oн" has always been used as a  pronoun for  inanimated objects, as well as "oна" for animated ones.

Nothing is further from the truth.

Again, russian has grammatical gender, so whether animate/inanimate object is the case, "он/она" will be used according to that same gramm. gender.

Examples:

Вот стол. Он деревянный. (муж.р. неодуш)
Вот книга. Она интересная. (жен.р. неодуш)
Вот кот. Он полосатый. (муж. р. одуш.)
Вот собака. Она пушистая. (жен.р. одуш.)

Remember: russian gramm. gender goes much further than that of, for instance, German and dictated not as much by WHAT it is as by HOW it is written.

In English we always refer to a ship, or to a favorite car as "she". 

In russian: 

Ship (корабль) - he.
Ship - Yacht (яхта) - she.
Ship - barge (баржа) - she.
Ship - cruiser (крейсер) - he.
Ship called by name, without mentioning the ship itself:
Аврора - she (feminine name)
Неустрашимый - masculine name, he.
Car (машина) - she.
Car (автомобиль) - he.
Car (тачка, slang word) -shе.
Car (мотор, slang word) - he.

All this purely grammatical. Nothing to do with personalized/animate/inanimate.


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## fluffy2001

Small addition to said above
There is another one "оно" in Russian 

мужской род "он"— masculine gender 
женский род "она" — feminine gender 
средний род "оно" — neuter gender 

for example
солнце (sun) - оно
окно (window) - оно


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## morzh

Yes, the neuter.

And then there is "кофе", and it is "он".


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## fluffy2001

morzh said:


> Yes, the neuter.
> 
> And then there is "кофе", and it is "он".


Yeap
But then we should explain rules of distinction between masculine, feminine and neuter gender.


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## morzh

In Russian, same as in, say, Spanish, it is easy. Endings dictate it all. Try German for a sec. No indications whatsoever - you have to remember which is which.

So we are blessed. And the case of "кофе" is a confirmation to the strength and effectiveness of the rules in Russian - it is so intuitive. Otherwise there would be no "кофе" problem.


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## Awwal12

> Endings dictate it all.


Well, actually not all. If the ending is -а/-я, -о/-е or a consonant letter, it is so (just don't forget about the existence of the common gender and about "кофе"). But when the ending is -ь, you must memorize the gender anyway.


> Try German for a sec. No indications whatsoever


Morphology often can indicate a gender in German. Words on -chen or -el are neuter, on -heit are feminine, etc. But of course, learning German you must memorize much more words than learning Russian.


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## morzh

Awwal12 said:


> Well, actually not all. If the ending is -а/-я, -о/-е or a consonant letter, it is so (just don't forget about the existence of the common gender and about "кофе"). But when the ending is -ь, you must memorize the gender anyway.



Yes I wanted to say that about "ь" but then thought this would make it complicated. I guess one has to know whether the noun is 2-nd or 3-rd declension....but then how do you know that. Indeed, how is "конь"/"шампунь"/"рояль" different from "моль"/"соль"/"толь". 

But do admit, it is otherwise pretty simple.


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## notters

Hi all,
I have only just started to learn Russian and wondered if you could help me with the use of "it". I have only been told about using "Он" but would it not depend on the gender of what precedes it?
 If the "it" refers to something feminine, would it not be "Онa"?
 Thank you in advance.


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## randomgirl

It depends on the noun it describes.
i.e. 
'он' is used for masculine nouns,
'она' is used for feminine nouns
and 'оно' is used for neuter nouns.

Hope that helps.


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## notters

Just as I thought; thank you for the clarification


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## Angelo di fuoco

Awwal12 said:


> Well, actually not all. If the ending is -а/-я, -о/-е or a consonant letter, it is so (just don't forget about the existence of the common gender and about "кофе"). But when the ending is -ь, you must memorize the gender anyway.
> 
> Morphology often can indicate a gender in German. Words on -chen or -el are neuter, on -heit are feminine, etc. But of course, learning German you must memorize much more words than learning Russian.



Even if you have -ь, there is a rule saying that abstract nouns in "-сть" are feminine.
-а/-я nouns can also be masculine: sex determines gender as in "детина", "дядя", "тятя" and "староста", "старшина", "старейшина".
-мя is neuter.

"-chen" is neuter, but when speaking of a girl, the personal pronoun will be almost always "sie" and not "es". However, this is not grammatical:, dependant of the sex, not the gender.
"-el" can also be masculine and even feminine: der Bengel, die Semmel.
-er is masculine when it comes to nouns where you can also add the "-in" suffix to obtain the feminine form, but it can also be feminine (Tochter, Mutter, Leiter=ladder) and neuter (Euter, which can also be masculine depending on the speakers preference).


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## morzh

>>-а/-я nouns can also be masculine: sex determines gender as in "детина",  "дядя", "тятя" and "староста", "старшина", "старейшина".

Often times with these there is the underlying function of the word that dictates the gender. Although today some of it is not politically correct.

Детина means a large male - hence masculine.
Дядя - uncle or just addressing a male - same case.
Тятя - addressing father, hence mail.
Now this:
Староста, старшина, старейшина - traditionally male occupied positions, (this goes to political correctness - today it may be not the case, but it is veru clear how it was formed) hence - masculine.

Now, it is interesting, that when these "positional" masculine are applied to a live person, there may not necessarily be the required usually agreement between the adjective, noun and verb: for instance, if the "староста" is a woman (староста класса), then the verb and adjective would agree with her as a female wheres the noun itself is male-gendered.

Ко мне подошла (ж.р.) староста (м.р.) Лена (имя - ж.р.).
Старшина (м.р.) милиции Петрова (имя - ж.р.) действовала (ж.р.) в соответствии с инструкциями.

Sometimes the adjective (modifier) can agree with either gender, of the subject, or of the predicate:

Она (ж.р.) - опытный (м.р.) врач (м.р.).
Она (ж.р.) - опытная (ж.р.) врач (м.р.).


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## Pyccak

morzh last I heard coffee is now neuter too. It's a recent addition to the grammar book, but none the less true. http://www.aif.ru/culture/article/29257


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