# what is masculine/feminine



## crowolo

Hi, I started studying russian (not so seriously yet, I don't have too much time right now) and I'm confused about my italian textbook examples (russo manuale di conversazione con pronuncia figurata, A. Vallardi).
it talks about feminine nouns and reports:
singolar: картина (it: il quadro, en: the picture)
plural: картины
singolar: нога (it: il piede, en: the foot)
plural: ноги

but both 'il quadro' and 'il piede' are considered masculine in italian language!

any hint/text on this issue?


thanks,
crowolo


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## Anita413

Ciao, crowolo,
Il problema l'ho anche io perche studio italiano e generi in questi due lingue non concordano


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## Jana337

crowolo said:
			
		

> Hi, I started studying russian (not so seriously yet, I don't have too much time right now) and I'm confused about my italian textbook examples (russo manuale di conversazione con pronuncia figurata, A. Vallardi).
> it talks about feminine nouns and reports:
> singolar: картина (it: il quadro, en: the picture)
> plural: картины
> singolar: нога (it: il piede, en: the foot)
> plural: ноги
> 
> but both 'il quadro' and 'il piede' are considered masculine in italian language!
> 
> any hint/text on this issue?
> 
> 
> thanks,
> crowolo


Well, that's too much to expect!  Genders vary across languages. There is nothing intrinsically masculine about piede and quadro, right? I am sorry but you will have to learn genders with new vocabulary. You will soon discover some patterns, such as words ending with -a are usually feminine, words ending with another vowel are usually neutral. But these will be just rules of thumb.

Jana


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## crowolo

ok, thanks a lot 

cheers,
crowolo


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## ekhlewagastiR

crowolo said:
			
		

> but both 'il quadro' and 'il piede' are considered masculine in italian language!
> 
> any hint/text on this issue?


 
just open your mind, it´s the only hint!
by the way, "la pierna" in Spanish is also feminine.
And in the Russian language exists the Neutral gender also.

the "hint" is to memorize the genders as they don´t have anyting to do with each other in Russian and Italian languages (Latin wouldn´t help either)


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## cajzl

> the "hint" is to memorize the genders as they don´t have anyting to do with each other in Russian and Italian languages (Latin wouldn´t help either)


No. You are mistaken. There are some similarities between Latin/Italian and Russian (and among the IE languages) that help a lot.

For example:

All a-stem nouns that do not denote male persons are feminines.

Latin: aqua, porta, terra, rosa, via, ... are feminine, but poeta, nauta (=sailor), agricola (=farmer) are masculine

Russian: voda, jagoda, zemlja, doroga, ... are feminine

On the other side the o-stem and u-stem nouns are usually masculine (or neutre).


Also the *derived* *nouns* have a predictable gender (according to their suffix).

Only the consonant-stem nouns are difficult and nearly unpredictable:

LAT: mons (mont-), pars (part-), ...
I usually use some mnemonic like:
monte nigr*o* - masc.
bon*a* parte - fem.
etc.

Interestingly the abstract nouns in both languages tend to be feminine (they are predictable by their suffix or stem as well):

LAT: veritas, altitudo, iuventus, ... (the exception: amor, horror, ...)
RUS: pravda, vysota, glasnost', ...


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## ekhlewagastiR

cajzl said:
			
		

> There are some similarities between Latin/Italian and Russian (and among the IE languages) that help a lot.


 
If this way of looking after "some similarities" is easier for you, why not?
In my personal opinion, it would be better not to mix Latin and Russian  and just do 2 things: memorize and practice


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## cajzl

Crowolo asked for hints, you answered that basically there are no hints. I am trying to be more constructive.

Hint #1:

a-stem nouns (not denoting male persons) are feminine
_(very numerous cathegory !!!)_

Hint #2:

you can always rely on the suffix

for example: *-itel'* -> masculine, *-nost'* -> feminine, etc.


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## iter

salve a tutti,
sono di madrelingua russa, vorrei offrire mio aiuto a chi ne ha bisogno.


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## Crescent

The only thing I would say about memorizing genders (I'm sorry - I don't speak Italian unfortunately) is this: When I come across a new word and try to memorize it's gender, I imagine this word correspoding to it's gender..
by this, I mean..say..(Okay, this might be a little difficult because I can't explain it in English because the language has no gender, and I'm not going to tell you how I memorize genders in russian, because it's my native language   ) So...say, in french the word 'livre' is masculine (un livre=a book), and when I learn that word, I imagine un livre being very..macho-like and muscly and flirting with a lot of pretty ladies..
(Okay, that's a little bit too far-fetched, but it works, I promise!)
And une chaussure (a shoe) is definately a pink stilletto heel, painted with daisies and roses, and all very feminine, and elegant and graceful.. 
It's quite silly, but at least it does it's job: these funny assocaitions help trigger your memory because they are unusual and not every-day boring, monotonous expressions, so you will be able to memroize the genders better!


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## dec-sev

Crescent said:


> The only thing I would say about memorizing genders (I'm sorry - I don't speak Italian unfortunately) is this: When I come across a new word and try to memorize it's gender, I imagine this word correspoding to it's gender..
> by this, I mean..say..(Okay, this might be a little difficult because I can't explain it in English because the language has no gender, and I'm not going to tell you how I memorize genders in russian, because it's my native language   ) So...say, in french the word 'livre' is masculine (un livre=a book), and when I learn that word, I imagine un livre being very..macho-like and muscly and flirting with a lot of pretty ladies..
> (Okay, that's a little bit too far-fetched, but it works, I promise!)
> And une chaussure (a shoe) is definately a pink stilletto heel, painted with daisies and roses, and all very feminine, and elegant and graceful..
> It's quite silly, but at least it does it's job: these funny assocaitions help trigger your memory because they are unusual and not every-day boring, monotonous expressions, so you will be able to memroize the genders better!



 I use the same method but I had some difficulties imaging Mädchen (de) being neuter gender.


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## Crescent

Erm...sorry..what does 'Madchen' mean? and what language is it in?


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## crowolo

Crescent said:


> Erm...sorry..what does 'Madchen' mean? and what language is it in?


it's "girl" in german 

anyway, thanks you all for replies


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## Crescent

Ooh! Merci, crowolo! 
Oh my gosh, _really? _A 'girl' in german is a neutral gender?? What an insult! 

In this case, it would only be fair if a 'male' or a 'man' would be a feminine gender!!!!  
Somebody - please tell me it's true!!


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## Anatoli

Yes, das/ein Mädchen (дас/айн мэдхен) is a neuter in German, it has to do with the grammar, not the meaning. All words ending in diminutive suffix -chen (-хен) are neuters. It can be used with both "es" (it) and "sie" [зи] (she) when referring to a girl, usually the latter, especially if it is an older girl, das/ein Kind (child) is also a neuter. As in English a child in German can be referred to as "es" (it)


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## cajzl

Another rule for Latin and the Slavic languages:

The gender of deminutives usually follows the original gender.

Latin:

homo - homunculus  (human - masc.)
auris - auricula (ear - fem.)
corpus - corpusculum (body - neutre)

Czech:

dům - domek - domeček (house - masc.)
voda - (vodka) - vodička (water - fem.)
oko - očko - očičko (eye - neutre)


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