Он, она, оно: every noun has a gender

The last letter decides the gender

Every Russian noun belongs to one of three genders, and you almost never have to memorise which one. The dictionary form ends in a consonant – the word is masculine and is replaced by он; it ends in -а or -я – feminine, она; it ends in -о or -е – neuter, оно.

он and она are not only about people

Russian keeps no separate it for lifeless things. A table is он and a car is она, because the gender belongs to the word and not to the thing it names. Everything that describes the noun copies that gender too: дом большой, машина большая, окно большое.

Это дом. Он большой.This is a house. It is big.

Words that do not obey their ending

A small group of nouns ends in -а or -я but names men: папа, дядя, мужчина, дедушка. They are masculine, because a word that names a man cannot be anything else. And a closed group of neuter nouns ends in -мя: время, имя.

Это папа. Он дома.This is dad. He is at home.